


On the Other Side

by quantumducky



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst, Bullying, Child Abuse, Children, Eventual Fluff, Gen, Happy Ending tho, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Graphic Violence, but like VERY eventual, deceit is good in this and is named devon, especially virgil the poor kid is like 8 he doesn't deserve this, the sides are smol and i am mean to them
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2019-06-30 19:51:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 29,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15758535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumducky/pseuds/quantumducky
Summary: For the past thirteen years, a secretive organization has been raising two groups of superpowered children.  Half of them, since their very first memories, have been told they’ll grow up to be brave and strong superheroes; the rest were taught a much harsher view of the world, and groomed to become villains.  Neither group knows of the other’s existence.  But when a certain trio of heroes-to-be meets two future villains who really just want to be left alone, they all realize how much they haven’t been told.





	1. Dark

Virgil hit the back wall of the Room hard enough that he couldn’t bring himself to move for a second after falling to the ground.  He recovered just in time to intercept the unsteady form that crashed into him moments later, saving the other boy from similar pain.  They flinched into each other’s arms when the door slammed shut, and finally sank to the floor together. The Room was pitch-black and freezing, a personal hell for both of them.  It was going to be a long night… and that was assuming their sentence ended in the morning.

“I’m sorry.”

“Shut up, Dee.”  There was no bite to Virgil’s words.  They both knew nothing about the situation was Devon’s fault, his apology as insincere as it was unnecessary.  Still, as the (slightly) older of the two at very nearly ten, taking at least the pretense of responsibility seemed like the thing to do, if only to keep Virgil from thinking it might be on  _ him  _ when he’d only been trying to help.  “...Not your fault the grownups always take their side."

“Yeah…”  Devon winced at the reminder of how they’d ended up here, gingerly touching his cheek where he knew a bruise had to be forming.  One of many they’d both gotten today. The kids here were supervillains in training; they were basically  _ supposed _ to be mean to each other.  If you took beatings from jerks on the daily, well, you should’ve fought back harder.  Shouldn’t have seemed weak enough to be a target.

And Virgil and Devon were  _ clear _ targets- one small even for his age and afraid to use his power in case it went wrong, the other much better at talking than fighting and  _ forbidden _ to use his power because it  _ had _ gone wrong.  The first time Devon had tried to use his shapeshifting ability hadn’t exactly gone as planned, leaving him with scales covering half his face- and very little body heat, Virgil remembered as he felt him shivering- which he wasn’t allowed to fix yet in case it got worse instead, not until he was a few years older and would hopefully have more control.

“...Cold?” Virgil asked awkwardly, as he brushed against his friend’s increasingly icy hands.

“Y-yeah.”  Devon hesitated and then scooted over to lean against him.  “I don’t like it in here,” he managed, voice shaking.

Virgil nodded in agreement and hugged him tightly.  “Gonna warm you up,” he whispered. It was easier than real talking.  Felt safer.

_ Nobody _ liked the Room, that was sort of the point.  It was an isolation punishment. Leave someone in that glorified closet overnight, and by morning they’d be too happy to leave it to even think about getting out of line again.  In Virgil’s experience, and he had quite a bit, “overnight” could last several days. Teachers really didn’t like him. They wouldn’t do that to  _ Devon, _ though, would they?  They- they didn’t normally do this to him at  _ all. _  They’d stopped putting him in the Room after last time, when they found him unconscious and dangerously cold after just a few hours.  The adults didn’t hate them enough to actually want them  _ dead, _ right?  ...Or at least, not Devon?

“Hey.”  Virgil didn’t realize how worked up he was getting until Devon interrupted.  “Calm down, everything’s fine, okay? You’re crushing me.”

Virgil blinked, shifted awkwardly and tried to relax.  He was tiny, yes, but stronger than he looked- Devon’s little shadow had teeth.  Virgil hadn’t been the one to get cornered earlier; he’d been the one to jump in and actually fight back, despite the fact that the older kids already had control of their powers and a huge advantage, trying to give Devon a chance to run.  He hadn’t gotten far before a teacher caught him, though, and all his smooth words couldn’t get them out of trouble. They suspected it wasn’t the fighting they were punished for so much as the “working together and helping each other” part.

Devon moved a little to make them both more comfortable and tried to think.  “Okay. Can you talk right now, Vi?”

Virgil shook his head, knowing Devon would feel the movement.

“Want me to talk to you?”

He hesitated, then nodded.  The creepy silence put him on edge- well, more on edge than he  _ always _ was.  “But- shh,” he whispered.

“Okay.”  Devon lowered his voice.  “Um… wanna hear what I read about today?”  They were in different classes, unfortunately, so he usually related the things he’d learned to Virgil at night.

Another nod.  Devon adjusted so they could both lean against the back wall and launched into his slightly misremembered version of scattered bits of Greek mythology.  Virgil couldn’t follow it, honestly, but he was pretty sure that could be blamed on Devon not actually knowing what he was talking about, and anyway the important thing was having something to focus on besides his thoughts.  It helped him relax.

Virgil drifted off to the sound of his friend’s voice and slept fitfully, finally starting awake at a muffled sound outside the door.  That had to mean it was morning, right? He shook Devon’s shoulder and moved closer to the door. Yes, he could distantly hear the sounds of the day starting- so why hadn’t someone come to get them yet?  Did they want to make sure they missed breakfast, just to punish them a little more? He kept clinging to hope, only to have it destroyed when the noise faded away again and a faint bell signaled the start of classes.  Virgil squeezed his eyes shut and tried to stay calm. They weren’t getting out for at least another few hours, then.

It wasn’t until he shuffled back over to the wall, defeated, that he noticed Devon hadn’t moved.  He was still curled up in a ball on the floor, and Virgil had left him to listen for someone hopefully coming to let them out, and he was so cold oh god was he okay what if he was  _ dead? _  Virgil pulled him into a sitting position and shook him a little, then hugged him as tight as possible as if it would make him get warm faster.  This couldn’t happen, he couldn’t lose his only friend.

“Come on, wake up, I don’t wanna be alone you have to wake up now Dee please-”

Devon shook his head slowly, as if confused, and Virgil breathed a sigh of relief.  “...Vi? Somethin’ happen?” His words were a little slurred, but at least he was awake now.

“Just- you were really cold and I thought- I got scared,” Virgil mumbled.  “And, and it’s morning, the bell rang already…” Devon wrapped around him, both comforting Virgil and absorbing more of his heat, and Virgil shoved his face into his shoulder.  “What if they forgot about us or- or what if they don’t care and they’re just gonna leave us here forever?”

“Won’t happen.  Someone’ll come soon.  Promise.” Devon was still struggling to wake up, but he tried to sound sure of himself.

“You don’t know that…”

“Do too.  Would I promise if I didn’t know?”

Devon pretty much  _ exclusively _ promised about things he didn’t know, as they were both well aware.  Still, Virgil tried to let the words comfort him. “Fine.” Now, if they were going to be here another few hours, they might as well entertain themselves.  “So, uh, what… what would you do if you had a million dollars?”

They passed the time until the lunch bell rang.  ...And then they passed the time until classes ended.  Still nothing, and at this point Devon really wanted to cry, except he couldn’t because Virgil already had and at least one of them needed to remain calm and he was older.  They’d been quiet for a while now, because Virgil still couldn’t really talk and all the whispering was starting to hurt Devon’s throat.

The silence was only broken when Virgil tensed up enough to be worrying.  “It’s okay, Vi,” Devon murmured, wishing he were better at being comforting.  “Everything’s gonna be fine.”

“It’s not,” Virgil whispered back unexpectedly, shaking his head.  “It’s not, i-it’s not, they’re never coming we’re gonna die-”

“We are  _ not _ going to die,” Devon insisted.

“How do  _ you _ know?”

“I just do.  Trust me.”

Virgil almost laughed.  Yeah,  _ that _ phrase always inspired confidence.

“Come on, Vi, please, I, I’m really serious right now, don’t freak out,” he said a bit desperately.  He couldn’t remember what to do if Virgil got scared to where he couldn’t breathe right- he wasn’t usually allowed to help when it happened.  “They wouldn’t, they’re not gonna just leave us here, it’s gonna be fine, okay? They’re probably trying to scare you, so don’t let it work.”

“Right,” Virgil finally managed to whisper.  He shoved away the thoughts that wanted to remind him Devon didn’t actually know that.  “Not gonna let them  _ win,” _ he said a little louder.

Devon smirked invisibly; neither of them ever failed to be motivated by spite.  “That’s the spirit.”

It must have been almost evening by now.  Virgil fisted his hands in the fabric of the stupid-looking cape he always teased Devon about, trying not to panic and/or cry at the thought of spending another night in here when they were already hungry and thirsty and cold and  _ miserable. _  Devon clung just as tightly to the back of his hoodie, not letting Virgil know of his own tears, passing off his shaking as just from the temperature.  Eventually, they both exhausted themselves and fell asleep.


	2. Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rest of the main characters appear. Several things do not go as expected.

_Light._

The boys woke to a painfully bright light and the feeling of hitting the floor from their previous sitting-up position.  Ow. They got up as fast as they could manage, blinking quickly and swaying from both residual sleep and their general lack of strength at the moment, struggling not to reach out to each other for support.  What they saw when they regained their vision a few seconds later was… not exactly what they expected.

The three standing in front of them weren’t adults, but rather not much older than Devon- although they _were_ older, Virgil noticed, his internal danger-meter ticking up another notch- and they looked almost as surprised as Virgil and Devon felt.  A quick glance around told Virgil they weren’t anywhere he recognized, and- _what the fuck??-_ rather than an open door, they seemed to have fallen out of the Room through a _hole in the wall._  He wasn’t sure what any of this meant, but somehow he doubted it was good.

Devon, meanwhile, kept his attention on the trio in front of him.  Three boys- one bobbing up and down in midair with his legs crossed, one with a serious look of concentration currently focused on returning the wall to its normal state, and one in a weird outfit who seemed to be in charge, and also seemed to be glowing a little.  So they all had their powers handled. Great. They were _so_ going to die.

They all stared at each other for a few seconds, and then several things happened at once.

The boy who’d been fixing the wall finished and turned around at the same moment as the maybe-leader took a step towards them, eyes narrowed suspiciously at them and hands glowing brighter than before, looking like he was about to say something.  Devon started to speak, too, in hopes of defusing the situation before it could get any worse. The floaty one just looked concerned, and Virgil, well… Virgil sort of panicked. Before the one who’d stepped up could do anything, Virgil darted forward and kicked him in the shins as hard as he could so that he collapsed, then grabbed Devon’s wrist and bolted.  The vague sounds of cursing behind them told him he’d better be fast.

 

* * *

 

_A few minutes ago…_

Patton led his friends down a hallway, floating on air as usual- well, as usual if he was happy, which was most of the time.  They were on a super important mission to help someone, because Patton could tell _somebody_ around here needed some serious cheering up, and Roman and Logan were with him all the way!

“Patton, are you _certain_ your abilities aren’t just acting up because a movie made you sad again?”

Well… most of the way.

“For once I have to agree with you,” Logan chimed in unhelpfully.  “There’s nothing over here; _we_ aren’t even supposed to be over here, especially this late at night, so I don’t see how--”

“There!”

Patton pointed triumphantly to a blank wall at the end of the hallway.

“...Patton, that is a wall.”

“On the _other side_ of the wall, silly,” Patton huffed.  “I’m serious right now, there’s someone there and they’re really upset!”

“I am fairly certain that the only thing on the other side of this wall is some grass.  And even if there’s someone outside, how do you propose that we get there? It’s much too late to go out, and there’s a fence anyway, we couldn’t get to this side of the building from there.”  Logan seemed to think he’d left no further room for discussion until Roman turned and laid his hands on his shoulders with a serious expression.

“Did you actually forget that _we have superpowers, you hopeless nerd?”_

Logan’s eyes widened and he backed away, holding his hands up.  “Oh no. No no no, you are _not_ dragging me into this- do you even _realize_ how _difficult--”_

“Logan, _pleeease?”_

No one was immune to Patton’s oft-overlooked second superpower, his puppy-eyes face.

_“Fine,”_ Logan groaned.  “But if we get in trouble it’s your fault.”

He faced the wall and focused, thinking of the bonds that held its microscopic components in place and then thinking, hey, what if those were arranged a little differently?  In the blink of an eye, a chunk of the wall was now a pile of rubble a little bit off to the side.

To Logan’s surprise, the hole he’d made didn’t lead outside like it should have, but into a small empty closet.  A draft of cold air spilled out immediately- along with two small boys, who must have been asleep, but startled awake once the wall they’d been leaning against disappeared and they fell into the hallway.  Logan blinked in surprise, hearing Patton’s soft gasp of “Oh!” and Roman’s muttered “What the…?!” He couldn’t focus on _that_ problem yet, though, because he still needed to return all the bits of the wall before he got in trouble for taking it apart, and putting things back the way he found them was a lot less simple than turning them into deconstructed messes.  He didn’t want it to end up all lumpy because he let himself get distracted.

The boys stood up quickly, if a little dazed, and the trio got a better look at them while they seemed to be struggling to get their bearings.  They were both fairly small, dressed in mostly black and littered with bruises. The taller one had one weird eye and scales on the left side of his face, probably something to do with his powers, and appeared to share Roman’s fondness for wearing silly costumes at all times for no good reason.  The other was _tiny,_ only coming up to his friend’s shoulder, though it might have been exaggerated by the way he scrunched in on himself.  He was openly glaring at all three of them, with the hood of his oversized jacket pulled down almost far enough to hide his eyes and his hands balled into fists inside the too-long sleeves that covered them.

Roman, sizing them up, was immediately a bit suspicious.  He knew all about villains- they were evil, they hurt innocent people for no reason, and he, as a superhero, was going to fight them when he grew up- and these two fit the typical description perfectly.  He stepped towards them to ask who they were, readying his light manipulation powers in case they tried to hurt his friends. Before he could say anything, the tiny kid lashed out without warning or clear cause, kicked Roman’s legs out from under him and ran away, dragging his friend along with him while Roman bit out a string of words he wasn’t supposed to know.

“Roman, are you okay?!”  Patton, feet on the ground for once, offered a hand to help him up.

“I knew it, I _knew_ they were going to try something,” Roman exclaimed, angry but still quiet to avoid getting caught in an off-limits area.  He didn’t want another lecture on why rules were for his own safety and he should really consider following them sometimes; he got enough of those from Logan.

Patton caught his arm before he could do anything.  “Ro, I think- I think they were just scared, I think they didn’t know what was going on and we startled them and- oh, we have to go after them and fix this, I only made it _worse!”_

Logan nodded.  He was shifting back and forth, increasingly uncomfortable with the whole situation.  “And we need to get them back where we found them before--”

_“No!”_

Logan and Roman both stared at Patton, who had his jaw set in a determined pout and a little wisp of smoke coming from his bangs.

“We can’t, you don’t understand- if you had _felt_ it, you guys- they were so upset I could feel it from our room and, and they were so scared of us, and- who goes to sleep in a _closet,_ anyway, I don’t think they wanted to be there at all and we are _not_ gonna make them go back!”

Roman was still trying to process things, so Logan spoke up again, carefully.  “What… _do_ you suggest we do with them, then?”

“Well, we can… they can stay with us!  …Just until tomorrow, and then we can figure out what else to do?  Please?”

Logan gave up.  “I guess I don’t have any better ideas…”

They both looked at Roman, who was still conflicted.

“…Fine, but I’ll be watching them and they better not hurt you guys.”

“Yay!  Thanks, guys!”  Patton squeezed them both in a hug.  “Now- let’s go find them, I think they went this way!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still on schedule so far, so chapter 3 will definitely be up next week!


	3. Hide and Seek

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Making New Friends: Take 2. No one gets injured this time, so let's call it a win.

It wasn’t hard for Patton to sense where the two boys had gone.  In fact, he found himself actually pulling back a little from their emotional auras, wincing at the waves of panic he could feel from them.  Logan tapped his arm to bring him back to reality when a worried fog started accumulating around him. He shook himself out of it and led his friends back down the hallway the way they’d come, stopping at the doorway of one of the classrooms in that hall.

Roman insisted on being the first into the darkened room: “It might be dangerous, you don’t know!”  He sounded entirely too excited about that prospect. Logan rolled his eyes, but decided to let him have his fun.  Patton, however, got impatient when the dramatic scan of the room was taking too long and ducked under Roman’s arm, ignoring his noise of protest.  He was- for once- a little more focused on the main issue at hand.

“Hello?” Patton called softly, flipping the lights on.  “Anyone in here? We’re not going to hurt you, I promise!”

He knew they  _ were _ in there, of course- and could tell where their hiding spot was- but he wanted to let them show themselves on their own terms.  He’d felt a spike of fear from them when they heard him and his friends walk in, and he didn’t want to scare them even more by actually going over there and exposing them.  Behind him, Logan quietly closed the door; just because Patton was trying to make them feel comfortable didn’t mean he should risk them running off again. Roman just stood there, fidgeting with a ball of light between his hands and dimming the rest of the room in the process.  He still wasn’t sure how to feel about the new friends Patton seemed determined to make.

Patton frowned.  It seemed like they were still scared of him.  No one had ever been actually scared of him before in the entirety of his ten years of life, and it was really starting to upset him.  He couldn’t get too upset right now, though, because he needed to be calm instead so he could help  _ them _ be calm.  He took a deep breath and tried to focus, like he’d been learning in his meditation class.

A gentle breeze swirled around the room, shifting a few pieces of paper and ruffling everyone’s hair.  Roman blinked as some of his nervousness seemed to drain into the floor beneath him and, in turn, let the light drain out of his hands and back into the room around him, only keeping a few faint strands to play with.  Logan relaxed his posture as well, giving Patton a small smile, which he didn’t see because he still had his eyes closed for the whole focusing thing. He exhaled and opened them after a few more seconds, and all three of them waited hopefully to see if the other two in the room would be convinced it was safe to come out of hiding.

Half a minute went by painfully slowly, and Patton began to slump a little.  It was looking like his gentle approach wasn’t going to work after all. There went his chance of resolving the situation without any more conflict… wait!

Everyone perked up at the muffled shifting noises coming from one of the cabinets under the counter at the back of the room.  A second later, it was pushed open, and the boys tumbled out and ended up sprawled on the floor in front of them for the second time in fifteen minutes.  They were even more disheveled than before after cramming themselves in with a bunch of dusty school supplies. The small one recovered first, clutching a not-very-sharp pencil in each hand and jumping up as if he still expected a fight.  His friend got to his feet behind him, brushed himself off and grabbed his arm to keep him from doing anything stupid, while Roman pulled Patton back a little to be safe. Hopefully this round of awkwardly staring each other down would turn out better than the last.

Patton laughed nervously and struggled to keep projecting calm to everyone.  “Okay, guys, I think we might’ve got off on the wrong foot earlier… we didn’t mean to scare you, really!”

There was silence.  The taller of the two boys managed to meet Patton’s eyes for a moment with a tight half-smile, but the other was aiming a distrustful glare at Roman, who made a face at him in response behind Patton’s back.

Okay, this was… still very tense.  Patton wilted a bit at the complete lack of response he’d gotten, but he wasn’t giving up yet.  Just keep talking? Yeah, that would probably work eventually, right? “Um… oh, uh, my name’s Patton!  And that’s Logan-” he waved a hand behind himself and nearly smacked Logan’s arm- “and this is Roman and he’s nice really, um, don’t kick him again please?  Or… stab him with pencils?” He let out a nervous giggle and slapped a hand over his mouth to try and get himself under control. Roman gave him a look, hurt that his best friend would laugh at the injustice that had been done to him, and Logan just sighed.

“What he’s trying to say,” Logan cut in while Patton was incapacitated, “is that we don’t intend you any harm.”  He looked at them over his glasses, which didn’t quite have the desired effect when coming from an eleven-year-old.  “However, since we’ve been introduced now, I think it would only be right for you to return the favor and tell us who  _ you _ are.  …And put the pencils away.”

The two exchanged a look and then, after a brief hesitation, a small nod.  The one brandishing said writing tools surrendered them to his friend, who set them on the counter- still notably within reach- and cleared his throat.

“I’m… my name is Devon and he’s Virgil,” he said, still holding on to Virgil’s arm.  His eyes darted over to Logan and the closed door, and his grip tightened. “I apologize for… him earlier… it was an accident, he didn’t mean it, promise, we’re really sorry…”

Roman crossed his arms and interjected before Patton could go and say that it was totally fine or something like that.  “If he’s really sorry for attacking me, which I doubt, why doesn’t  _ he _ apologize?”

“Ro…”

“What? I just want him to actually apologize, is that so much to ask?”  He was too preoccupied with being indignant to immediately notice Virgil doing pretty much the opposite of that, tensing up again and baring his teeth at him.  Jeez, the kid was practically feral.

“Roman.  You’re scaring them again.”  Patton tugged him backwards, and he grumbled under his breath about unfairness.  “But… it  _ would _ be nice if you would say sorry for kicking him, Virgil.”

Virgil flinched at the use of his name, and Devon pulled him back against his chest in an attempt to calm him.  “He doesn’t like to talk,” he explained, mentally willing them not to push it any further. “He- he only talks to me.”

Roman blinked and rubbed the back of his neck.  “Oh. Um…” He looked at Virgil again. “Well, could you just… nod or give me a thumbs up or something, then?”

“Let him have this,” Logan advised, appearing over Roman’s shoulder.

Virgil squirmed and glared at the floor.  He didn’t like everyone looking at him. But if it would make them leave him alone…  He glanced up and gave Roman the world’s most halfhearted jerky nod.

“Satisfied?” Logan asked drily.

“As a matter of fact, yes, I am.”

“Oh thank god,” Devon breathed, quietly enough that only Virgil heard it.  He started edging towards the door, which was currently unguarded. “Great, we’ll just be on our way then-”

“Wait!”

They both froze and looked at Patton.  Virgil took a tiny step back, grabbing Devon’s sleeve in preparation.  Of course it wouldn’t be that easy.

“Nonono, I’m sorry, nothing bad-”

That sounded fake.

“-it’s just… where are you going to go?  Because I know you’re not in our class and if you stay here you’re going to get in trouble and I saw, you know, where you were before and it didn’t seem very… nice and- and you were scared.”

Devon stiffened, and Virgil wanted to bristle at the assertion that he had been scared just then or ever before, but… okay, maybe it was the adrenaline-plus-exhaustion headrush, but he felt weirdly chill about the whole situation and Patton in particular, like maybe… maybe for once someone who said they wouldn’t hurt him was being honest about it.

“So I kinda thought- I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t want but maybe you could come with us and stay in our room?  You can hide if anybody comes in and it’ll be like a sleepover! And then in the morning you can figure out where to go, and we can help you, okay?”

Patton held out his hand to them and attempted to hold in an excited grin.  Virgil and Devon looked at him and then at each other, communicating purely through small changes in facial expression.  A… sleepover? That was pretty much a foreign concept to them, but not one that sounded too bad in theory. It could still be a trap, of course- but on the other hand, it wouldn’t make much sense to lure them  _ there _ when they were already cornered  _ here. _  Frankly, at this point, they didn’t have much to lose compared to the amount of trouble they’d be in once one of their teachers caught them here, wherever here even was.  And fuck it- maybe Patton really did mean what he said, and he would help them, and that was a better hope than they’d had in a while. With a final nudge from Virgil, Devon swallowed nervously, then reached out and took Patton’s hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know its only 9 pm but i am so tired. the decision to post this chapter instead of just going the heck to sleep was not an easy one. also, since i got a little creative with patton and haven't explained it yet, his powers are a mixture of empath + elemental manipulation which is affected by his mood


	4. Sleepover

The odd little group was lucky enough to make it back through the hallways without being seen by anyone.  Patton was floating again, thrilled to have new friends- who were going to be spending the night, no less!- but the guests in question weren’t quite as excited.  Recent events had been a little too much to process, they still didn’t really know where they were, and they were pretty much running on adrenaline and struggling to keep up as it wore off, and then there was the fact that Logan kept giving them these weird looks when he thought they wouldn’t see.  Roman and Virgil were still staring each other down and seemed to think their respective friends didn’t notice, while Patton was talking nonstop in a desperate effort to avoid awkward silence and Devon wished he could comprehend any of it. Everyone was more than a little relieved to finally arrive at the trio’s room.

The layout was a fairly basic two-person dorm room, except that it had three people in it.  This had been achieved through a lot of pleading with adults and a little bit of sneaking Logan’s things in when no one was looking to make it harder to tell them no.  There was a bunk bed in one of the back corners of the room and a loft bed in the other, extra blankets hanging down from the sides to turn the space underneath into a permanent pillow fort.  This was technically where Logan’s desk was supposed to go, but Roman and Patton had pushed theirs into the same corner to make room on his side by the door, so it was alright. It was also where the two newcomers were quickly ushered.

“It’s almost lights out,” Patton explained, pointing to the digital clock on Logan’s desk that showed 9:26.  “We only just made it! Stay right here a few minutes until they’re done with the check, okay?”

They nodded and squeezed themselves into the very back corner, where there was the most shadow to hide them if someone happened to peek in.  Logan looked at them for a second, nodded and threw a blanket over them for good measure right as someone knocked on the door.

“There.  Don’t move,” he said quickly, leaving the fort barely in time as the door opened.

It was a tense couple of minutes for Virgil and Devon, even though everything seemed to be going fine from the conversation they could make out.  They didn’t understand how the other boys could be so friendly with the man who’d come around to make sure everyone was in their rooms and going to bed- Thomas, his name apparently was, and not only were they calling him by his first name, they were casually joking around with him, and Roman just called him a nerd!  And he  _ laughed! _  Devon was too concerned about being caught to whisper it to Virgil at the moment, but he had a new theory that they’d been transported into some kind of mirror dimension where everything was backwards.  (His first theory had been that he’d fallen asleep again and was having a weird dream, but when he’d mentioned it on the way here Virgil had poked him with the pencil he’d managed to grab again and asked him if it hurt.  Friendship at its finest.)

In any case, it wasn’t long before they were safe to come out again, Patton’s nervous laughter and Logan’s stammering when Thomas innocently asked what he’d been doing in the fort having either gone unnoticed or been chalked up to whatever of their usual ridiculousness the three of them were getting up to this time.  Rather than have them leave the pillow fort, though, the trio simply joined them there, making sure to give sufficient warning so nobody would get punched. It was the best place in the room to get comfy and talk, after all.

“Okay,” Patton said as gently as possible, giving his friends a look to keep them from jumping in right away with the many questions they had.  “I don’t wanna be rude, or make you uncomfortable or anything, but… what was going on when we found you? Were you- are you guys okay?”

Virgil put his hood up and tucked his knees to his chest, not quite scowling.  He hated people staring, and he could practically feel them looking over the bruises that stood out on his pale face.  Like it was any of their business what happened- like they actually cared beyond morbid curiosity. Devon only shrugged and looked away.

“We… sort of got in a fight with some guys… it didn’t go super well.  Tried to run away and then we ended up stuck in the Room.” He shuddered slightly, and Virgil nudged his side in a subtle gesture of reassurance.

Roman bit his lip and stayed uncommonly quiet.  If they’d just been beaten up, Virgil’s attitude made a lot more sense.  Maybe he shouldn’t have taken it personally. …On the other hand, he was going to be bruised himself tomorrow, so he still didn’t feel  _ completely _ at fault here.

“So you were hiding in that room from the other kids and… what, fell asleep?” Logan attempted to clarify.

The two gave each other a brief look.  Had these three never been in the Room?  How far up the social hierarchy around here  _ were _ they?

“Uh… yeah, pretty much?”  Probably better not to clarify that no, actually, their lives were even  _ more _ pathetic than that.  “We were just kinda… in there for a while and-”  Devon cut himself off with a somewhat painful coughing fit.  He’d been trying to ignore it, but his throat was  _ really _ dry right now and the talking was not helping.  “Sorry, I’m just--”

“Oh no, are you okay?!  I’ll go get you some water, hold on!”  Patton jumped up and ran out of the fort, towards the bathroom they shared with the room next door.

Logan nodded to himself.  “If you’d been sleeping it makes sense that you would be thirsty now- we should have thought of that before asking you to talk…”  It was good to have an explanation, he’d been concerned for Devon’s health.

Patton returned quickly, spilling a bit of water on the blankets that covered the floor in his haste to push the two cups he was carrying at Devon and Virgil.  “I thought you both might need it, with all the running around and stuff, and I just realized we’re not doing a very good job making you feel welcome, do you need anything else?  Just tell me if you- Oh, oh, we have to have snacks, duh!”

Devon drained his cup as slowly as he could manage, careful not to spill any more than Patton already had.  Virgil, meanwhile, took a tiny sip of his to make sure there wasn’t anything wrong with it and then downed it in two seconds.  Patton missed this feat because he’d jumped up again and started rummaging in his desk, but the faces of the other two showed a mixture of admiration and bewilderment.

“Okay!”

Everyone was a bit startled as Patton reappeared, tossing a half-empty package of cookies in the middle of everyone and speaking around the one he already had in his mouth.  He plopped down on the floor and crossed his legs, then schooled his face into a more serious expression.

_ "Now _ we can talk for real.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *tired writer noises* when will i be stopped from finishing chapters last minute at 9pm  
> stay tuned next time for: a lot of dialogue, some fluff and maybe a plot development if i'm lucky


	5. Truth or Dare part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys play a game. A long, dialogue-filled game that wouldn't fit in one chapter even when said chapter is twice as long as I usually aim for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one's a week late, but hey there's two chapters' worth of words here so it evens out?

In reality, there were a few more things that needed to be taken care of before they could all settle in for a long conversation, as Logan quickly pointed out.  They had to at least look like they were going to sleep. Soon enough, though, they were all ready for bed, the lights were out and Roman had produced more junk food from somewhere because he was annoyed that most of the cookies were gone before they’d even started.  Devon was rather self-consciously wearing Patton’s extra pajamas, since they were the closest in size, but no one had anything that would fit Virgil and he wasn’t about to change in front of them anyway. Everyone gathered back under Logan’s bed and got comfortable, Roman pulling the light from his nightlight into the fort so they could see what they were doing.

“Where to start,” Logan murmured, looking over at their guests and trying to decide which of his many questions to ask them first.

“How about with you explaining what exactly this place is you brought us to?”  Devon raised an eyebrow. “I mean, I think it would only be fair.”

Roman blinked and interrupted before Logan could respond, “You mean you don’t know?!”

“...why would I be asking if I knew?”

“I just don’t understand how you could possibly not know!  It’s only the best place ever! I mean, we’re learning to use our powers so we can be freakin’ superheroes and save people and vanquish evil and everything!”  He finally had to stop and take a breath.

“Isn’t it obvious that they don’t know because they haven’t been here before?  They were somewhere else; we brought them here. Also, how can you possibly know this is the best place when you haven’t been to any other places?”

Roman looked annoyed, even more so when he saw Virgil put a hand over his mouth to hide his amusement, although it was at least a step up from glaring at him.

“Well, if it helps,” Devon offered drily, “I’ve been one other place and this one’s definitely better so far.”

Logan perked up.  “That’s right, I was about to ask you--”

“Waitwaitwait!”

Logan un-perked with a sigh.  “What is it, Patton?”

“We all have a bunch of questions for each other, right?”

“Yes…?”

_ “So we should play truth or dare!” _

Roman cheered.  Logan groaned. The other two looked lost.

“Oh, um- have you guys not played it before?  It’s just, y’know, you take turns getting asked, and you say truth or dare and then the person asks you a question or dares you to do something, and you have to do it, except not if you really  _ really _ don’t want to, but if you don’t then you don’t get to have your turn to ask somebody else, and then it’s the next person’s turn and you ask them truth or dare and they pick and it keeps going around!”

If anything, Patton’s explanation only left them more confused than before.

Logan sighed.  “What he means is, on your turn you choose whether you want to be asked a question or dared to do something, and after you either answer honestly or perform the dare, you can give someone else a question or dare.  If you aren’t willing to do something or answer you can ‘forfeit,’ which by the rules we use means the person who asked you gets to pick a different person to ask and you don’t get a turn to ask that round. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, that!”

Devon nodded slowly.  “So we don’t  _ have _ to do anything?”

“I mean, you don’t have to play at all if you don’t want to, but it wouldn’t be as much fun…”

He looked questioningly at Virgil, who shrugged and nodded.

“Okay, sure,” he decided.  “I’ll just have him tell me whatever he wants to say and then I can tell you guys.”

Patton grinned.  “Great! Alright, who wants to go first?  Probably one of you two so they can see how it works,” he added to his friends.

“Uh, do you have to ask?”  Roman gestured to himself.

He laughed.  “There wouldn’t be a game if I didn’t ask, Ro!  Truth or dare?”

“Dare.  I mean, what is there you don’t know about me by now anyway?”

“Good point.  Hm… I dare you to… make up a song about a butterfly and sing it!”

“Okay… uh…”  Roman thought about it for a few seconds, then started singing to the tune of “Jingle Bells.”  “There’s a butterfly, flying in a field… landing on a flower, so it can have a meal… at least I think that’s what… it is butterflies eat… I’m not really sure but if it is that’s pretty sweet!  Oh, butterfly, butterfly-”

“That’s enough of that,” Logan decided, putting his hand over Roman’s mouth and then quickly pulling it back when Roman licked him.  “And yes, most adult butterflies drink nectar from flowers. No more singing-related dares, please?”

“Fine,” Roman and Patton sighed in unison.

“It’s my turn to ask now… so… Virgil!  Truth or dare?”

“How about one finger for truth, two for dare,” Logan suggested.  “Might go faster.”

Virgil was a bit startled, not having expected to get a turn so quickly.  He looked at Roman suspiciously for a moment and held up two fingers.

Roman crossed his arms.  “Alright, I dare you to take the chips out of your pockets.  It’s not so dark I can’t see you, you know. Just ‘cause I’m sharing doesn’t mean you can yoink all the Doritos.”

Virgil scowled and tossed a couple mini-bags of Doritos back into the middle of the circle.  It wasn’t too much of a loss- the pockets of his oversized jacket were still full of cookies, after all.

“Your turn, Virgil!” Patton chirped.  “Who do you wanna pick?”

He looked at them all for a bit, trying to make up his mind, and finally pointed at Patton.

“Oh, me?  Yay! Uh… truth?”

Virgil leaned over and whispered to Devon, who relayed his question: “How’d you find us and why did you bring us back here?”

“Okay well, that’s two questions, but I can answer them both!  See, part of my power is I’m an empath- that means I can feel what other people around me are feeling,” he added when Virgil looked confused.  “Sometimes it goes the other way too, so like, when you guys were hiding from us, I tried to be really really calm so you would know it was safe.  But anyway, earlier we were hanging out in here and I noticed that someone was upset nearby, so I figured it was someone in one of the other rooms near ours, so I went to see if I could make them feel better and they came too because they’re my friends-”

“And because if we let you go wandering around by yourself you’d probably get lost,” Logan added.

“-and we went down the hall but it wasn’t coming from any of those rooms, so we kept going, and Lo said I was imagining it because there’s nobody down there and it’s just storage rooms and classrooms that barely get used, but I said it was coming from behind a wall so Logan made a hole in the wall to prove there wouldn’t be anything there, because there’s not supposed to be any more to the building after that hallway, but there you were!  And then… well, you were so confused and scared and it seemed like you needed help, and- and heroes help people! It wouldn’t have been right to just leave you there, we had to make sure you were okay…”

Patton’s seriousness melted away in half a second when he finished talking and realized it was his turn to ask someone now.  “Logan! Truth or dare?”

“Truth, Patton, it’s always truth, I don’t know why you still bother to ask.”

“Well you never know, you might switch it up sometime…”  As he thought about his question, his expression turned a bit worried.  “What are we going to do tomorrow?”

Logan had been considering the issue for a while.  “We can’t realistically stay in our room all day, since we have school, but no one else will come in here either, so it should be fine for them to stay here and hang out in the blanket fort while we’re gone as long as they can be trusted not to do anything stupid.”  He gave Virgil a look. “One of us can sneak away to check on them and bring them something at each meal- we might even be allowed to just eat lunch in here if we ask, but we shouldn’t count on it. Fortunately, tomorrow is Friday, so we’ll have more free time once it’s the weekend.”  He pushed his glasses up and looked around to make sure everyone understood.

“Are we all on the same page?  Good. That was a surprisingly non-absurd, sensible question, Patton, thank you.  Now- Devon.”

Devon looked up from picking at the little clouds stitched on the pajama shirt he was wearing and shrunk back slightly from Logan’s intense stare.  The moment felt bizarrely like getting his name called in class when he hadn’t been paying attention. “Y-yeah?”

Logan blinked, confused by such a reaction, and the spell was broken.  He may have been rather unusually serious, but he was still 11. “Truth or dare?”

“Oh, right.  …Truth.” In this sentence, “truth” was used to mean “the opposite of dare” and was not in any way a guarantee of upcoming honesty.   _ That _ would depend on the question.

“What was the place you came from like?”

Devon looked down, thinking.  “I would say that it’s kind of like here,” he said slowly.  “We’re getting taught to use our powers, too. But the other kids there aren’t as nice as you guys and our teachers don’t really like us… and we don’t have blanket forts and-” he looked at one of the bags Virgil had thrown back, which he’d immediately claimed and started eating- “Doritos.  These are really good, by the way.”

Roman gasped in exaggerated outrage.  “What?! No blanket forts? That’s unacceptable!”

He shrugged defensively.  It wasn’t like it was his fault, after all.

“Next you’re going to tell me you’ve never seen a Disney movie before!”

Both Devon and Virgil looked at him blankly.  Roman gasped again, making himself cough a bit with the intensity of his disbelief.

“WHAT!  What kind of  _ horrible _ place- that’s it, I’m going to educate you this weekend, I can’t  _ believe- _ I can’t even  _ imagine _ living for an entire… however old you two are… without seeing a  _ single Disney movie!” _  He pulled a battered notebook and a pen out of the mess around him once he’d finished emphasizing his point with wild gestures and started writing things down, muttering to himself.

“…Okay then.”  Devon blinked a few times.  “My turn, right? Uh…” He shrugged and poked Virgil.  “Hey Vi, truth or dare?” It felt a little bit like cheating, but hey, this way Virgil wouldn’t have to worry about his turn coming up.

Virgil went with truth this time, and Devon thought about it for a second before getting a slightly mischievous expression on his face.

“So what do you think of these guys?”

The question was both potentially very amusing and a way to check in.  If Virgil had picked up on something that made him feel unsafe, well, no one ever had to know if what Devon told them wasn’t his actual response, and they could be out of there as soon as everyone was asleep.  Virgil glanced at them all, then smirked and started whispering his answer.

Roman looked up from his intense list-making and scrunched his face up when he saw Devon trying not to laugh.  “Do we even want to know what he’s saying this time?”

“I don’t know what you want,” Devon very reasonably pointed out before continuing, “He says you’re all idiots but you seem okay, I guess.”  Virgil quickly whispered in his ear again, and he made a face in response. “He also says  _ I’m _ an idiot even though  _ nobody asked, Virgil.” _

Logan crossed his arms.  “I’m not going to dignify that with a response.”  Roman was too busy laughing at his offended face to remember he himself had also been insulted.

“That’s not very nice,” Patton tried to scold, but he was giggling.

Virgil relaxed a fair bit when they weren’t mad about it.  He even had a bit of a real smile himself. Without having to be prompted this time, he sat up a bit straighter and pointed at Roman, flashing one and two fingers to communicate the question- truth or dare?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have to write a 5-page paper in the next two days, kill me  
> chapter endnotes? more like the School Complaining Zone


	6. Truth or Dare part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oops

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i could have posted this chapter five hours ago except i kept forgetting what i was doing before i could even get my laptop out... of all the steps in the writing process where i expect adhd brain to fuck me over this one honestly did not make the list but here we are

Roman hesitated, not entirely trusting the look on Virgil’s face.  He seemed to be enjoying himself more, yes, but he also kinda looked like he was planning something… Maybe it would be a good idea to take the safer option this time.

“Truth?”

Virgil tugged at Devon’s shirt to get him in whispering range faster, and he gave Roman the question.

“What are you the most scared of?”

Roman attempted to backtrack, immediately regretting his choice.  “Wait, I, uh, I actually meant to say dare!”

Virgil raised an eyebrow at him and had Devon say, “Okay, then I dare you to tell me what you’re scared of.”

“That’s not fair!”

“Neither is changing your decision because you don’t like the question.”

“You  _ can _ forfeit this round if you don’t want to answer,” Logan reminded him.

“No!” Roman said quickly.  He almost never did that, and he didn’t want to start now.  “Ugh, fine.” He looked away and pulled the light closer to himself as he reluctantly admitted, “I don’t like the dark, okay?  I know it sounds like a stupid, little kid thing, but I can barely use my power if there’s no light, so…”

“Hey, no…”  Patton started to protest the way he was talking about himself, but Roman was still pretty sure he’d made even  _ more _ of a bad first impression now, sharing such a dumb fear.

“It’s not stupid.”

Roman looked up in surprise at Devon’s words.  He was still staring as Virgil bit his lip, then leaned over and whispered.

Devon blinked at Virgil.  “You sure?”

He nodded.

Devon turned back to Roman and quietly told him, “Vi… said to tell you it scares him too.  And he never tells  _ anybody _ stuff like that, so you better not say it’s stupid again, okay?”

Roman stayed frozen for a few seconds.  Of all the possible things he’d thought Virgil might have been saying when he’d started whispering again, that had not been one of them.

“…Oh,” he finally got out.  “I- okay.”

Patton scooted up next to him and gave him a one-armed hug.  “You gonna finish your turn now?”

“Yeah, duh.”  He smiled, returning to his usual confidence, and hugged back as hard as he could until Patton squeaked.  For half a second he considered doing the same to Virgil, but no, that would probably just get him a black eye.  “Truth or dare, Pat?”

Patton grinned, happy that his friend wasn’t upset anymore.  “Well, I haven’t gotten a dare yet…”

Roman had been hoping for that.  “Do something cool with your powers so they can see!”

“Ooh, great idea!  You should too, after me!”

“Well, if you  _ insist, _ how can I say no?”  Roman was always looking for excuses to show off, as his friends knew very well.  “Would you like to give a demonstration as well, Logan?”

Logan shrugged.  “I don’t see why not.  It might not be very impressive in the dark, though.”

“Wonderful!  Okay, Patton, go ahead!”

Patton gave a thumbs up and took a moment to focus.  Wind began swirling around inside the fort, almost like a miniature tornado, and he rose up until he bumped against the underside of Logan’s bed, still positioned as if he were sitting on the ground.  “This is what I can do when I’m in a good mood, at least…” He tucked his knees in and did a few somersaults in midair, giggling, and returned to the floor. He was a little dizzy from the spinning and flopped onto his back as soon as he touched down.  “What do you think?”

Devon couldn’t help himself.  “Could you pull all the air out of somebody’s lungs with that?”

“I- what?  I mean, maybe, I guess?”  He looked upset at the thought.  “Why would I wanna do something like that?”

He shrugged awkwardly.  “Just wondered…” Where he and Virgil came from, combat potential was the first and often only thing anyone ever talked about in relation to their powers.  He didn’t mean to make Patton  _ uncomfortable. _  “Uh- what do you use it for, though?”

“For… for fun?  Floating around and stuff?  I don’t try to  _ hurt _ people!”

“Okay, okay, sorry!  I wasn’t saying you did, I was just curious!”  He put his hands up in surrender. If everyone here thought like  _ that, _ maybe this really was some sort of mirror-world.

Patton shook his head.  “It’s okay, I just… don’t like thinking about that kind of stuff… Roman, you wanna go?”

Roman, in both a figurative and literal sense, lit up.  “Prepare to be amazed, you two,” he said with a wave of his hand in the direction of their guests.  “I don’t have that much to work with at the moment, but watch  _ this!” _

He reached for the ball of light he’d recently returned to the middle of the circle and it floated into his hand.  “It’s tiny now, but if I give it a little of my energy…” With a gesture, the light grew and brightened until it looked like he was holding an uncovered lightbulb.  The others had to peek through their fingers to keep watching him without hurting their eyes, but he didn’t seem bothered by it himself. “Yes, this seems like a good size.  Now I can do whatever I want with it. Maybe a firework show?” He set most of the light aside under a blanket and drew out little bits at a time, making them explode into three-dimensional bursts in every color of the rainbow.  “Did I mention I can do colors, too? Because that’s a thing.”

Once he’d made sure Devon and Virgil were sufficiently impressed- which wasn’t too difficult, since they had never actually seen fireworks in real life, just once or twice on TV- he put all the light back into one ball and stood up with it.  “Now here’s the  _ really _ cool part.”  He pulled the light between his hands, stretching it out like taffy, and molded into a shape.  In a few seconds he had a very glowy sword. “It goes right through my hand, right?” He waved his right hand through the blade.  “But watch this!”

“Oh, not this again,” Logan was heard to sigh under his breath, just before Roman turned with a quiet “hah!” and slashed one of the blankets cleanly in half.  He held the pose briefly before turning to face his audience again. “Awesome, right?”

Well, uh… they were certainly impressed.  In the sense that he’d left a strong impression on them, if not the kind he’d wanted.  Specifically, Virgil had instinctively grabbed Devon’s arm and shoved him into the corner, planting himself between his friend and Roman as if his scrawny eight-year-old self was going to make an effective shield.

“Roman put that  _ away,” _ Patton said urgently, frozen in place himself thanks to his close proximity to Virgil.  “Put it- get it  _ away, please-” _  He squeezed his eyes shut, struggling to separate the other’s feelings from his own.  Roman had already gotten rid of the sword the second he’d turned around, but it seemed Virgil wasn’t realizing that, and by extension, neither was Patton.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t thinking- it’s okay, it’s gone, it’s okay, please calm down?” Roman babbled a tad desperately, holding up his empty hands.  He didn’t know what to do, but he had to fix this, especially since it was all his fault to begin with, but he couldn’t so much as look like he might be thinking about moving towards either Virgil or Patton without them flinching away from him, and Virgil had to absolutely hate him at this point, he wouldn’t even blame him, he really managed to screw this one up on every possible level, didn’t he, and oh jeez Patton was crying now and he still didn’t know what to do- “Logan, Logan please, what- how- what do I- how do we help them?”

Suddenly, Logan’s hands were on his shoulders.  “The first step is  _ you _ getting yourself under control,” he reminded him.  “You can’t help anyone if you’re upset too. Deep breaths, and just focus on that, okay?”

Roman nodded and did as he was asked.  “Okay. Okay, I’m good. Now what…?”

Logan surveyed the situation.  Patton wasn’t likely to calm down until Virgil did, but the feedback loop his power had created was only making everything worse- including Devon, who was clinging to the back of Virgil’s jacket, aware he needed to help him but unable to make himself move.  As Logan watched, dark clouds began to form above Patton, a much harsher wind than earlier tearing at his hair and clothes as he curled in on himself, and rain began to fall in a very localized storm.

“You go and see what you can do for Patton,” he told Roman.  “I don’t think he’ll be able to recover until the others have, but you might be able to keep him from getting any worse.  I’m going to try and snap Devon out of it so he can help Virgil, since I doubt he would respond well to either of  _ us _ right now.”

Roman nodded, pushing down his guilt to deal with later, and braced himself before entering Patton’s mini-storm.  Actually, he took a step in, then jumped back and grabbed a blanket to wrap up in before trying again. That rain was really cold.

“Patton?”

He didn’t answer.  He might not have even heard Roman, actually, with the storm as loud as it was.  Once inside, it was like the rest of the world didn’t exist. It was kind of scary.   


“Hey,” he tried again, moving closer until their knees were almost touching.  “Can you hear me? Pat?”

He finally tapped Patton’s shoulder, and he jumped and looked up, and Roman’s breath caught at the sight of how miserable he looked.  He’d obviously been crying hard, and since he was just in his pajamas, he was getting completely soaked. It was like finding a sad, lost puppy out in the rain.  Roman immediately wanted to bundle him up and hug him until he felt better, but he wasn’t sure how that would go over when he’d startled so much at Roman getting his attention.  After a couple seconds of both of them just staring at each other, Patton opened his mouth and tried to say something, only to give a shudder and bury his face in his arms again.

“Oh no- Patton, hey, it’s gonna be okay, please don’t- uh-”  He leaned back until he could reach out of the storm. “Blanket?”

Patton looked up again when a dry (for now) blanket was put in front of his face and quickly wrapped it around himself, nodding.  He pushed his wet hair out of his eyes with an unsteady hand. He was still crying, not able to get a full breath in between sobs.  “I- I…”

“I know,” Roman said.  He didn’t actually have any idea what Patton was trying to tell him, but that was the thing people said in these situations.  “Just, try to breathe, okay? Logan is helping Virgil calm down and then you’ll stop feeling like this too.”

“I-is, is he okay?”

“He’s gonna be fine, Logan is with him, don’t worry.”  He bit his lip, trying not to let his guilt add to Patton’s current emotional burden.  “…Hug?”

Patton nodded again quickly and scooted forward, latching on to Roman’s waist.  Roman wrapped his arms around Patton’s shoulders and tried to keep the blankets in place so they wouldn’t get any more rained-on than they were.  He could still feel him crying, but it gradually lessened, and eventually the storm was gone and they were just sitting in a weird, uncomfortable puddle.

Patton was calm now, at least.  “We should… probably go change, huh?” he said with a shaky laugh.

Roman nodded, looking down.  He took as long as possible getting dry clothes on, because he knew as soon as they went back, he was gonna have to deal with the fact that all of what just happened was his fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i did not expect most of what happened in this chapter to happen but what can ya do it's not as if i control what happens in my own story or anything ha haha.. im dying


	7. Truth or Dare part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> if i ever again devote three chapters in a row to a freaking sleepover game you have permission to come to my house and punch me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No more truth or dare after this, promise. ...For real this time.

Patton noticed Roman’s hesitation, and it wasn’t difficult to guess the cause.  He took his hand with an encouraging smile and led him back to the fort.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he assured him.  “I know you didn’t mean to, you just didn’t know it would scare them… I’m sure if you explain that and apologize, they’ll understand!”

Roman wasn’t as certain, but he allowed himself to be pulled along anyway.  After all, what kind of hero would he be if he couldn’t do the right thing and apologize when he messed up?

Everyone glanced over when they came in, although no one said anything yet.  The blankets were still soaked in the corner where Patton had been sitting, but it only took him a second to pull the water out of them and deposit it in the bathroom sink, leaving everything nice and dry again.  Roman winced a little at that. To have such good control of the water, he must still have been feeling pretty bad, even if he was trying not to act like it.

“Is everyone okay now?” Patton asked, sitting cross-legged in the same spot as before and patting the blankets to tell Roman to join him.  As soon as he complied, Patton let his head rest on Roman’s shoulder, blinking heavily. The storm had taken a lot out of him, and it was a fair bit later than they were used to staying up anyway.

Devon nodded.  “We’re alright.”  He was leaning on the wall, and Virgil was leaning on  _ him, _ turned away from everyone else so that his face wasn’t visible.  They both looked about ready to fall asleep where they were, too- well, insofar as the back of Virgil’s head looked like anything.  Maybe that was why they didn’t have all their defenses back up; they were just too tired.

“Guys, I- I’m really sorry,” Roman blurted before he could overthink it.  “I was just so excited to get to show off, I wasn’t thinking- I understand if you don’t… trust me around you anymore.”  He pulled his knees up to his chest, moving away from them and closer to Patton to show his willingness to stay away, not that they could see him very well in the dark.  The light had gone back where it belonged earlier, with Roman focused on other things. He brought it into the fort again and played with it absently in the increasingly awkward silence that followed.

It was a bit of a relief when someone at least moved.  Virgil lifted his head, turning a little to look at him.  Silently, of course. It was very uncomfortable until Roman realized he was just watching the ball of light bounce between his hands and not staring him down.

“Oh, uh- I can, I can put it away if you want,” he stammered, assuming it was making him nervous.  To his surprise, Virgil shook his head quickly and actually reached out a bit as if to stop him from putting it back.  Roman was suddenly reminded of Devon had related to him shortly before things had gone wrong.

“Do you… want it?”  He got a slightly confused look in response and attempted to clarify.  “I can make it so you can touch it, and I can’t do anything else to it without touching it myself, so it won’t do anything unexpected this time… Just- will you allow me to begin to make this up to you?  Please?”

Virgil considered him for a few seconds.  This was a very unfamiliar type of interaction for him, after all.  Then, he nodded slowly and held his hand out. Roman perked up, cheering internally, and took a moment to solidify the little orb of light before floating it over to him.  Virgil caught it and turned it over in his hands a couple times, then gave him a thumbs-up and- was Roman just imagining that he seemed a little happier?

“Does that mean you’re not mad at me anymore?” he asked hopefully.  A brief whispered exchange, and Devon answered.

“We don’t hate you or anything,” he assured.  “Just don’t do anything like that again.” He ended with a warning look, but Roman was too relieved to be very intimidated.  Then he put his arm around Virgil and continued, “And uh- we’re sorry too… for overreacting and interrupting the game and upsetting Patton…”

“You don’t need to apologize,” Logan said carefully.  “I would guess that in the context of your previous experiences, the way you reacted made perfect sense, and the game was really not that important.”

“I’m the one who should be apologizing to  _ you,” _ Patton cried.  “I tried to use my powers and help and- and it made everything worse!”

Logan realized he was still apparently the only one here thinking rationally.  “You were having a panic attack too,” he pointed out. “You couldn’t possibly be expected to control your emotions.”

Virgil and Devon looked at each other.  There was a term for it? They would have to ask about that, when they were more awake.

“Now, if we’re all done blaming ourselves for things that we either didn’t mean to do or had no control over…”

“Can we finish the game?”  Patton asked. “I mean, I know we’re all really tired, but I don’t want the last thing that happens today to be  _ that…” _

“I’m willing.”  Roman didn’t want to fall asleep thinking about it either.

Devon shrugged.  “As long as you don’t mind if we fall asleep in the middle of it.”  Point of fact, he wasn’t entirely sure Virgil hadn’t done that already.

“If it will make you feel better, I’ll participate too,” Logan agreed.  “Actually, I believe I was supposed to demonstrate my power now. I’ll keep it calm since it’s getting so late.  Er… Virgil, do you think you could move the light a little so we can see?” He’d sort of curled up against Devon and was holding it like a stuffed animal, which was somewhat endearing, but also prevented the light from doing its job.

“You make a better door than a window,” Patton giggled.

Virgil made a sleepy, barely-there “hm?” sound and turned his body so that the light was more visible.  He blinked hard a few times and rubbed his eyes, trying to wake up so he could watch Logan.

“Thank you.”  Logan pushed his glasses up and began.  “I have the power of molecular manipulation- which, if you haven’t gotten to that yet in your classes, molecules are the little pieces that everything is made of, I have a book I can show you tomorrow- but with the limitation that I have to understand what I’m doing to be able to do it, so I can fairly easily do something like this,” he held up the pieces of the blanket Roman had attacked and put them back together as if nothing had ever happened, “or what I did earlier today to make a hole in the wall, but if I wanted to cause something to explode or similar I would need to do some research first.  Moving things is the easiest. Teleportation is possible in theory, but I’ve tried it with some small objects and they don’t necessarily look the same afterward, so I wouldn’t want to do it with anything living.” Roman and Patton exchanged a “yuck” face at the very thought.

“It also allows me to change the temperature of things,” he continued, leaning forward and taking a couple of cookies.  It was a miracle any were still left, honestly. He frowned at them for a few seconds. “There- an example.” He scooted closer in order to hand them to Devon and Virgil, who were pleasantly surprised to find the cookies were warm now, making the chocolate chips all nice and melty.

“Do some for us too, Lo, please?”  Patton could, of course, get Logan to do this any time he wanted, but still.

“Oh, all right.”  He warmed up two more for Patton and Roman.

“Surely you know this is the only reason we wanted you to room with us,” Roman teased, slinging an arm around Logan’s shoulders.  “Our own personal nerdy microwave.”

“Oh, get off me,” Logan grumbled, trying not to laugh as he pushed him away.  “It’s supposed to be Patton’s turn now, right?”

“Right!” Patton tried to say, only his mouth was still full of cookie, so it came out more like “Rmph!”  He swallowed quickly before going on, “Logan, truth or dare?”

“Oh, don’t even bother,” Roman interjected with an over-dramatic sigh, “he’s boring, he’s only ever going to say- ”

“Dare,” Logan interrupted, crossing his arms and giving Roman a look.  “Only so you’ll leave me alone about it.”

“Oh!  Um… I need a minute to think about it now,” Patton said with a surprised giggle.  “No, wait, I know…” He whispered in Logan’s ear, cupping his hands so no one else could hear.  “I dare you to lick Roman’s face every time he says the word ‘the’ for the rest of the game with no explanation.”

“I am not doing that,” Logan said immediately.

“What?! What did he tell you to do?” Roman asked, clearly disappointed.

“He wanted me to lick you-”

“Wh-  _ Patton,” _ he whined.  “Gross.”

“Yes, exactly, which is why I’m not doing it.  I forfeit this round, and also propose a rule of no more dares for the rest of the night, because clearly  _ some _ of us have started getting  _ weird.” _

“Aw, no!”

“Just because you don’t want to-”

“You two, shush.  Devon? Virgil?”

“Uh…”  Thanks a lot, Logan, they  _ totally _ wanted to be put on the spot right now.  “Well- Vi’s pretty tired, so it might be a good idea…?”

“Thank you.  See? They’re on my side, majority wins.”  There was some complaining, but the new rule was accepted fairly quickly in the interest of not having their new friends think they were mad at them.

“Oh well, that makes it my turn again… If we’re not doing dares anymore, I guess I can jump right in and ask someone a question, right?”  Patton hummed thoughtfully, considering his options. “Hey, Virgil, what’s your favorite kind of cookie? If you’re still awake over there…”

Virgil sat up straighter to answer, looking slightly insulted by the insinuation that he was falling asleep just because he was curled up with his eyes closed and hadn’t moved in a while.  Devon listened to his answer and started, confused.

_ “Snickerdoodles? _  When did you even have snickerdoodles?”

Virgil merely shrugged with a mischievous little smile.

“Ohhh, I love those too!” Patton exclaimed.  “We should ask Thomas to get some for us next time he goes to buy snacks… oh, you guys didn’t really meet him, did you?  He’s really nice, you’d like him, and he gets snacks for everyone sometimes ‘cause he’s our dorm parent. Shoot, I’m rambling,” he laughed.  “Sorry, Virgil, you can take your turn now!”

Virgil nodded and thought for a while.  Coming up with things was getting harder as his sleepiness grew.  Eventually he shrugged and indicated Logan. “What’s your favorite animal?” Devon asked for him.

“Oh, that’s a difficult one, there are so many good choices… well, I don’t know if it’s my absolute favorite, but I think the octopus is very interesting.  Three hearts, no skeleton- so they can fit into tiny gaps and escape sometimes when they’re in captivity, and they absolutely will try if they get bored- and they can change colors to camouflage themselves.  Also, when they mate-”

“Wow, Logan, that’s neat!” Patton quickly interrupted.  “I like cats, myself.”

Logan was thankfully distracted from saying any more on the subject.  “You- you’re  _ allergic _ to cats.”

“Well, yeah, but I like them!  They’re cute!”

Roman shifted, stretching out on the floor and propping himself up with his elbows.  “Bet I can guess Devon’s favorite.”

“Oh, shut up.”  Devon stuck his tongue out at him, which did not necessarily help his case.

“I believe it was my turn,” Logan reminded everyone.  “So, hmm… Roman, if you were to compliment, let’s say two of the other people playing, what would you say?”

Roman graciously refrained from pointing out how that was basically a sneaky rephrasing of a dare and Logan was already exploiting loopholes in his own rule.  He did, however, also refrain from choosing him as one of the two people he now had to say something nice to. “Patton,” he proclaimed, throwing himself over said boy’s legs so as to make sure he had his attention, “you’re an absolutely wonderful friend and I love you.”

“Aww!”  Patton hugged him.  “You’re a great friend too, love you back!”

“And…”  He was determined to include one of the other two rather than Logan, but he didn’t exactly know them well enough to have much to work with.  “Uh- Devon, your face looks cool!” It wasn’t the most original, he certainly knew what his own face looked like already, but it wouldn’t look good if Roman sat there for too long trying to come up with something complimentary to say.

Speaking of Devon’s face, it darkened instantly.   _ “Thanks,” _ he said with more bitter sarcasm than should have been able to fit in his small body.  “I know how stupid I look, alright, it’s not new information to me, so whatever you’re trying to pull you can just  _ forget _ it.”

“Wait, no!  I wasn’t- I just genuinely thought it was cool, I didn’t mean to insult you, of course not!  I- hold on, who told you it looked stupid? I’ll fight them,” he declared, seeming like he really did mean it.

Devon blinked, his scowl fading.  Okay, maybe he’d been a little quick to get defensive, but to be fair… “Uh… how about everyone?  If you actually think this looks good, you’d be the first… See, I used to look normal, but then something happened with my power so now it’s like this, and it’s easy to make fun of, so… yeah.”

“Then I suppose I shall have to fight everyone you’ve ever met.  By the way, what  _ are _ you guys’ powers?”

“Well, I can shapeshift, only as you can see it hasn’t worked very well so far-” he rubbed his arm, embarrassed- “and Virgil… we’re not sure yet.  He’s not ready to try using it, whatever it is. Was that your question, is it my turn now?” Upon receiving confirmation, he turned to Patton. “What’s so great about cats that you love them even though you’re allergic?”

Patton bounced excitedly, jostling Roman, who was still lying across his legs.  “They’re just so cute and sweet and soft, and they purr, and their little paws are so cute, with the toe beans, you know?  And when they like you they rub their little face on you and it’s just adorable!”

“Which is bad in your case,” Logan reminded him, “because then you have fur on you and have to change clothes because  _ you are allergic to cats.” _

“I know but  _ still!” _

“Hey, I have an idea,” Roman spoke up from the floor with a yawn.  “How about we stop the game and just have a conversation like normal people, because what we’re doing right now is just a conversation with extra rules and it’s getting sort of hard to follow.”

“You have a point,” Logan admitted, and everyone else nodded in agreement.

“Great, in that case I don’t have to wait to ask Devon why he acts like he’s never, like, seen a cat before?!”

“I’ve  _ seen _ cats before,” he protested.  Which he had, just not in person that he could remember  “But this is a school, you don’t have cats in a school!”

“In  _ our _ school you do,” said Patton, “they bring them in sometimes and if you’re having a bad day or you need to calm down you can go play with them.  Except I’m not allowed to anymore because they figured out about my allergies, so unless I start taking medicine I can only play with the dogs now.  Which are also great! But I’m still kinda sad about the cats.”

“Weird.”

Logan tilted his head.  “So that’s one difference… are there other things we have here that your school doesn’t, or vice versa?  I suppose it’s probably hard to say since you haven’t seen much of ours.”

He thought about it.  “Another one is that we don’t really have a ‘dorm parent’ like you do… I mean, there’s adult supervision, they don’t just leave us to do whatever, but there isn’t someone actually called that.  And they definitely don’t take requests to go buy us snacks. More of just someone being nearby all the time to make sure we’re not breaking rules… don’t think we’d get away with staying up talking this late either, they would’ve noticed and come told us to shut up and go to sleep by now.”

Patton frowned.  “They don’t sound very nice…”

“Yeah, well.  They’re nice to  _ some _ people.  Not us, though.”  He unconsciously hugged Virgil, pulling him closer to his side.

“Well, you should just stay here, then,” Patton decided.  “Thomas is nice to everyone.”

Remembering something, Roman asked, “Is that why you hadn’t had Doritos before?”

“Yeah- I mean, kinda.  There’s stuff like that in the cafeteria sometimes, but then people take more than they’re supposed to and if you don’t feel like fighting to be at the front of the line there isn’t anything good left, and we’d probably just get hurt if we tried to do that since everyone literally has superpowers, so…”  Not to mention they got hurt quite enough as it was. “Doesn’t seem worth it for chips or whatever.”

Virgil leaned up and whispered something.

“Oh, what?  Really? Okay, apparently Vi gets cookies sometimes from Mr. Remy who works in the cafeteria because he thinks he’s too skinny.  Is that how you got snickerdoodles? No fair, he doesn’t sneak  _ me _ cookies.”  He was surprised Virgil hadn’t told him before.  He  _ would _ have been surprised he hadn’t  _ seen _ it, but they often weren’t scheduled to eat at the same time, being in different grade levels and all.

Patton gasped.  “We know him too!  And Thomas  _ likes _ him but he won’t admit it,” he revealed, giggling.

“We’re trying to set them up,” added Roman, wiggling his eyebrows.  “I think we’re getting close, Thomas actually managed to say a full sentence to him last week!”

“What do you have other than that?” Patton asked.  “Does your cafeteria have the same foods we do? Pizza and stuff?”

Logan side-eyed him.  “Are you hungry or something, Patton?”

“I just need to know!  ‘Cause if they haven’t had something we have then we need to bring it back for them tomorrow so they can try it!”

“Probably?  It’s just, y’know, normal cafeteria food.  Not  _ amazing, _ but like, it’s edible and all.”

“Devon, I have a very important question for you.”  Patton scooted closer and looked him in the eyes.  _ “Do you have french fries shaped like smiley faces.” _

He blinked.  “What? No. How would you- how does that even work?”

“You  _ don’t?!” _  He was much more distraught than the situation seemed to call for.  “Don’t worry, I’ll get them for you as soon as I can!”

“O… kay?  You don’t… have to-”

_ “Yes I do.” _

He put his hands up in surrender.  “If you say so. But, ah… can we stop talking about food now?  Because it’s kind of the middle of the night and we can’t actually get any of it until morning, and we’re not going to get very far anyway if you’re just going to list things off and ask if we’ve had them, and anyway I think Virgil is asleep for real now.”

“I think we should  _ all _ go to sleep now,” Logan chimed in.  “At least the three of us who live here and have to be up early tomorrow.”

“Aw, I guess you’re right…”

“That’s fair,” mumbled Roman, who had faceplanted into the blankets.  He rolled himself slowly off of Patton’s legs and stretched. They’d all been in the fort for at least a couple hours at this point, and he wondered vaguely why Devon and Virgil didn’t seem to mind being in the same exact position in their corner for so long.  “‘M going to bed.”

“Brush your teeth first,” Logan called after him as he left, having done so himself before they’d even sat down in the first place.  He’d sort of expected everyone to finish talking way sooner than they had.

“You can’t make me,” he responded.  “You’re not Thomas.” He was already halfway in his bed at that point, given that it was approximately five feet away from the fort and he had the lower bunk.  (He would’ve argued for the top, but Patton had an unfortunate habit of floating in his sleep and winding up in the upper bunk regardless of where he’d started, so it was easier to just put him there in the first place.)

“Will you two be okay down here?” Patton asked Devon as Logan made his way out as well.  “Do you want more blankets, or water or anything? I mean, there’s  _ probably _ enough blankets since the whole fort is made of them, but if you’re cold I can find more… actually, are you comfortable being by yourselves, because I can stay with you if you want and then if you need anything you can wake me up, but I don’t want to be in your space too much…”

“Patton.”  Devon blinked at him tiredly, having only really heard about half of his fretting.  “We’re fine. Go to bed.” He adjusted a few pillows, making a cozy little nest for the two of them to sleep in, and flopped down with more than one blanket pulled over his head.  The conversation was clearly over.

“Okay, well, you just poke me if you need anything,” Patton said, leaving.  “Good night!”

“G’night…”  Devon curled up next to Virgil with a content sigh, just close enough to tell he was there without having to look.  Despite being in a strange place with people they’d only just met a few hours ago, he already felt more secure and comfortable here than he ever did normally.  There was so much to process about what had happened in those few hours he didn’t know where to start, but… it could probably wait. He was tired, and warm, and full of junk food.  Time to follow everyone else’s example and go to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late, the past week has been kind of crazy... I'm thinking about switching the update schedule for this to Friday or Saturday so this won't happen as much. What do you guys think?


	8. Morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is going to be updating on Fridays from now on. Much less stressful.

Getting up the next morning was not particularly fun.  The trio dragged themselves through their morning routine.  They were ready on time, but they weren’t gonna be happy about it.  Before going to get breakfast, Patton crawled into the fort to let Devon and Virgil know they were leaving.

He had to smile at the sight of them peacefully asleep, especially when last night had been so emotionally draining for everyone.  He couldn’t possibly disturb them like this! …But no, they probably wouldn’t appreciate waking up alone with no idea where everyone else went- he could try leaving a note, but it’d just get lost in the blankets.  Oh well. Virgil was closer, so Patton knelt next to him and shook him awake as softly as he could. The gentle approach didn’t help much, unfortunately. He sat up with a jolt, looking around in confusion until he remembered where the heck he was.

“Sorry, sorry!  Didn’t mean to startle you!”

Virgil, once he’d calmed down from waking up so suddenly, gave him a shy smile and waved hello, relaxing back into the nest of pillows.

“I just wanted to let you know we’re going to breakfast, okay?  We should be back in a little bit to bring you guys something.”

He nodded and pulled the blankets up.  He was asleep again by the time Patton ran out of the room to catch up with his friends.

 

* * *

 

The walk to the cafeteria was unusually quiet, no one even speaking until they were halfway up the stairs to the upper floor.  They could try to blame it on not being quite all the way awake yet, but there wasn’t much point given the existence of Patton.  He could tell the other two were just as preoccupied by worrying about their new friends as he was himself. Eventually, Logan spoke up quietly.

“We’ve all come to the same conclusion regarding… yesterday’s events, right?”

“I think so…”

“We have to protect them!” Roman hissed, keeping his voice down as they entered the cafeteria full of people.  “The things they said, and the way they acted- I mean- obviously I shouldn’t have done that, with the sword, but people don’t just react that way to things for no reason, right?  I’m almost afraid to find out what’s made them so- so…” He snapped his fingers a few times, trying to think of a word that would communicate what he meant without seeming to insult the two.

“Wary of others?” Logan supplied.  “To put it somewhat lightly, at least.  The way they reacted to us when we found them was… concerning, and then even after they figured out we weren’t trying to attack them or anything of the sort…”

“It’s like nobody’s ever been nice to them before,” Patton murmured.  “It’s awful.” He shuffled closer to his friends in the breakfast line, and Logan patted his arm.  Before the conversation could get any more sad and serious than it already was, however, they were interrupted.

“Hey! Guys!”  It was Nate, one of the boys from the room next to theirs.  He was running up to them, but moving a little slower than if he’d been walking, and his voice was somewhat distorted.

“Oh, hi!”  Patton brightened up and turned around as they all greeted him, and tried not to laugh.  “Powers acting up again?”

“Yeah,” he huffed.  “Woke up a little late, so I wanted to use it to get ready faster, but…”

The trio nodded sympathetically.  Nate had super speed… kind of. He could slow down time around him, but it seemed to backfire half the time he tried to use it, having the opposite effect instead.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get it eventually,” Roman consoled.  “Why, it seems to be wearing off already.” Indeed, he was mostly back to normal at this point.

“I wish I would get it _now,”_ he sighed, joining them in line.  “…By the way, what were you guys doing last night?  It sounded like a lot of stuff was happening over there.”

“Oh, uh-”

“Things just got a little out of hand,” Patton laughed, interrupting Logan before he could say anything extremely suspicious-sounding.  “So, uh, what are you gonna do this weekend?”

The subject was successfully changed, thank goodness, and the conversation went on without any more close calls.  By the time they got their food and sat down at one of the round tables to eat, they’d all nearly forgotten their earlier worries.

 

* * *

 

When Virgil woke up for the second time, it was peaceful.  The sun was coming in through the large window situated exactly between the two beds, and although the fort’s blanket-walls prevented the light from hitting him directly, it still seemed to warm up the entire room.  It was nice. His room was internal, so it didn’t have a window- not that he would’ve seen the sun in the mornings anyway, with how early he always got up to avoid his roommate. The realization that he’d been awakened by the faint sounds of people in the hallway outside made him a bit nervous, but he reassured himself- why would any of them want to go in someone else’s room who wasn’t even there?  Still, he stayed quiet a little longer, just to make sure. Once the noise had faded away, he stretched his arms over his head and turned to wake Devon.

“Hmm?”  He blinked his eyes open.  “Oh. G’morning.” Then he burrowed into the blankets again, trying to sleep longer.

Virgil pulled the blankets down to uncover him despite his whining.  “Patton said they were gonna go get breakfast and bring us something back,” he told him in a somewhat hoarse voice.  “Might wanna be awake.”

“mmm I _guess,”_ he groaned, burying his face in a pillow.  He sat up reluctantly, wrapping himself in a cocoon of blankets.  “When’re they coming back?”

“Dunno, I went back to sleep as soon as he stopped talking.”  There was the sound of the door being unlocked, and Virgil squeaked, pulling him down and covering them both with blankets as well as he could.

“We have returned!” Roman announced, although not too loudly.

“They’re back now,” Virgil whispered helpfully, and they both laughed before emerging from the blankets.

“Oh, good, you’re awake!” Patton moved the blankets aside.  “Do you wanna come out here and eat at a desk so the fort doesn’t get any more of a mess?”  Cookie crumbs everywhere was one thing, but getting pancake syrup on the blankets would just be gross.  He saw their hesitation and added, “The door’s locked, nobody will see you.”

Sufficiently reassured, they left the fort and went over to see what the trio had brought back.  It was… wow. That was a lot of food.

“We weren’t sure what you would like,” Logan said a little sheepishly, “so we tried to get some of everything.”

Devon raised an eyebrow.  “And nobody questioned this?”

“We just said we were really hungry today,” Roman shrugged.  “Go on!” He was impatient to see their reactions, honestly.

And he wasn’t disappointed.  Virgil went for the pancakes- they had chocolate chips today, everyone’s favorite, which made things slightly messy when he decided to roll one up and eat it with his hands rather than bother with a fork- and his eyes went wide as soon as he took his first bite.  Meanwhile, Devon seemed to have claimed everything with meat in it, and especially the scrambled eggs with cheese and bits of bacon. It wasn’t very long before almost everything was gone, and Virgil was giving his little carton of chocolate milk a betrayed look for daring to be empty.

“I take it it was good?” Patton asked once it seemed like he’d actually be able to get their attention.  Apparently they shouldn’t have worried about what the two would like, since the answer was now clearly “everything.”

“We have school soon,” Logan reminded everyone.  “And we need to take the tray back to the cafeteria first, so we should get our stuff together and go.”  He, of course, already had his stuff together, and had since seven P.M. yesterday, because he was just like that.  “I imagine it would be fairly boring to be in here all day with nothing to do, so let me show you where some things are you can entertain yourselves with if you’d like…”

The other two wanted to help too, naturally, and it turned into a tour of practically everything in the room which almost made them late.  Virgil and Devon were slightly bewildered by it all. They would have been fine without anything, really, not to mention they were still not used to the idea of having so much _stuff_ to begin with.  Like, how was Patton allowed to have so many stuffed animals?  Shouldn’t he be too old for those? Virgil was, after all, and he was definitely older than _him._  He seemed really sad when they asked, though, so maybe it didn’t work like that here.

“Okay, have fun, you two,” Patton told them while getting his backpack on.  “We’ll see you at lunchtime, don’t get into too much trouble before then…” He winked and left, making sure the door was locked behind him.  In the quiet that followed, the two remaining in the room looked at each other and shrugged, then crawled back into their nest in the blanket fort and went back to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need to stop giving myself cravings while writing this... incidentally, you guys ever have those food-service omelets that are like, a perfect circle of not-quite-egg folded over with not-quite-cheese inside? I want those so bad right now, it's super weird. I don't even like real omelets all that much.


	9. Thomas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i meant to post yesterday and just didnt have the chapter done but how about we all pretend this is on purpose and im playing around with different update times. yeah

It was about eleven in the morning, and Virgil and Devon were finally done sleeping.  They’d had a long couple of days, okay? But they were up now, and gradually making themselves at home in the trio’s room.  Devon had picked up one of Logan’s science-y books and was understanding maybe half of it while Virgil doodled vaguely on notebook paper, humming to himself.  It was as good a sign as any that he felt comfortable here, and Devon had to smile when he looked over at him. Of course, he couldn’t resist ruining the moment.

“Hey, Vi.”

Virgil didn’t respond, so he grabbed a pillow out of the fort and threw it at Virgil’s head, except the pillow was big enough and Virgil was small enough that it hit pretty much all of him.  Virgil jumped, made a face at the jagged line that now went all the way across the page and looked up. “What?”

Put on the spot, Devon realized he didn’t actually have anything to say.  “…Hi.”

Virgil rolled his eyes and threw the pillow back at him, but the corner of his mouth twitched up a little.  “You’re so dumb.”

“Well, you weren’t listening.”  He moved over to where Virgil was sitting and leaned over his shoulder.  “What’re you drawing?”

He shrugged.  “Dunno. I’m just thinking.”

“About what?”

“It’s… weird here,” Virgil said after a pause to collect his thoughts.  “I mean- it’s nice! I just…”

Devon knew exactly what he meant.  “It’s _too_ nice.”

“Yeah.  Like- something has to go wrong, things can’t just be nice like this.  Not for us, anyway.” He set the notebook down and hugged his knees.

“Nothing’s gonna happen.”

“You don’t know--”

“I was right last time, wasn’t I?  It worked out fine just like I said.”

“That’s not what you said.”

“Yeah well, I was still right in _general…_  I’m older than you, okay, so I’m right and shut up.”

Virgil scoffed and threw a crayon at him, but he didn’t look so worried anymore, if only because he was too busy looking unimpressed.  “If you’re so smart, why don’t you tell me everything that book’s about and explain it?” he challenged.

“I would _love_ to.”  Devon reached back to grab the book and prepared to make Virgil think he actually had any idea what a third of the words meant.

 

* * *

 

The bell rang for lunch, and the entire fourth-grade class jumped up.  It felt like it’d been a _year_ since class started, at least according to Roman, who was known to be biased against long division.  Regardless of whether that was right, everyone was more than ready for some lunch, not to mention the free time that was to follow.  That feeling wasn’t exclusive to the kids, either; Thomas, for one, was thrilled to no longer be wandering from classroom to classroom, hoping no one would notice he didn’t remember basic math.  It had been a while, okay? He had a calculator app for that now.

He would’ve liked to get to the cafeteria as fast as possible- for purely food-related reasons, of course- but as it turned out, he’d forgotten his jacket, which he was going to need to join the kids outside after lunch.  Logan was still putting his things away, meaning he and his friends were the last ones left in the classroom, so Thomas turned to them and said, “Hey guys, I’m gonna run back to my room and get something, okay? If anyone needs me, tell them I’ll be there in a minute.”  They agreed, and he headed back to the dorms while they made for the stairs.

It wasn’t too long of a walk, so Thomas didn’t bother to hurry.  He was just in a really good mood today, y’know? He chuckled fondly when he passed the trio’s room and heard noise from inside- those three were always getting up to something.  It wasn’t until he’d almost reached his own door that he realized the obvious issue with that, specifically, the fact that he’d just seen them going to lunch. And if it wasn’t them making noise in there, and none of the other kids had a key to their room… well, he could only hope they hadn’t brought some animal in from outside again.  He turned around and speedwalked the way he’d come, jacket once again completely forgotten.

 

* * *

 

Roman had been convinced they would _die_ before getting to the front of the lunch line, and it would all be Logan’s fault for insisting on actually putting things away neatly, but fortunately this was not the case.  They did, in fact, get their food eventually, and had just sat down at a table to eat it when Thomas came up to them.

“Hey there, did you get what you needed?” Patton greeted him, assuming he was just coming to sit with them as he sometimes did.

“What?  Oh, no, I… forgot again.”  He seemed rather distracted.

“Is… everything okay?”

“I don’t know yet.”  He gave them all a Look, going into responsible-adult mode.  “Is there anything you three wanted to tell me?”

Patton laughed nervously.  “What? Noo… what are you talking about?”

“Well, I was walking by your room a minute ago, and--”

“We can explain!” Roman said hurriedly, attempting to shush him.  “Just- not here.” That should buy them some time to think of an excuse.

“Okay,” said Thomas, now even more sure they were hiding something than before.  “How about we take our food and go talk in your room?”

The three exchanged a look of panic, but none of them could think of a good reason why that _wouldn’t_ be a good idea that didn’t involve either the truth or something equally incriminating.  Well… crap. Hopefully Virgil and Devon would know to stay hidden, and one of them could come up with something on the way.

“Sure,” Logan finally agreed weakly.  “I don’t see why not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh-oh


	10. Busted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for some reason the end of this chapter did NOT want to get written by me yesterday

Roman really, really wished their room were further away.  He was freaking out far too much to come up with a good excuse in such a short walk!  At least Thomas wasn’t asking any questions yet. He was mostly watching the three of them and looking concerned.  Who even knew what he  _ thought _ was going on.  Now they were almost there, and—oh no, what if Devon and Virgil weren’t in the fort?  Or what if they heard them and assumed it was safe to come out? Just a few doors away from theirs, he sped up a little and got Thomas’s attention.

“Don’t worry, Thomas,” he said loudly.  “We have a perfectly good explanation for… whatever it is specifically you want us to explain.”  To Thomas, this was not a reassuring statement, as it seemed to imply there were multiple things going on that might conceivably require explanation.  He got even more concerned when he heard a muffled thud from inside the room. Patton offered him a nervous smile in response to his questioning look, while Logan rather slowly unlocked the door.

Thomas walked in and pulled a chair out from one of the desks, setting down the large tray which held everyone’s lunch.  “Alright, guys. Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

From the looks on their faces, it appeared that they did not.  “What exactly do you want to know about?” Logan asked cautiously.

“You could start with what that noise was just before we came in here.”

Roman shrugged, not being entirely sure either, and looked around to find one of his notebooks on the floor.  “I guess this must’ve fallen off my bed?”

Thomas nodded, although he was pretty sure that wouldn’t have made such a loud noise.  “Okay, well—honestly, that’s not what I really care about. I wanted to talk to you guys because I heard something from your room, and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t anything to be worried about.”  There was a brief pause in which they all made vague noises of assurance that, no, they hadn’t done anything like that  _ one _ time.  “But now,” he continued to their dismay, “I’m worried because you’re clearly trying to hide something from me.  Otherwise you would have been able to explain in the cafeteria, right?”

He waited for a response.  Typically this would be the moment where they realized they’d been caught, fessed up and laughed about whatever silly thing they’d been doing.  After all, it wasn’t as if the stakes were very high; they might lose some free time if they’d gotten up to actual trouble, but that was about it.  Instead, though, they looked… scared. What, of  _ him? _  What could they possibly have done to be so afraid of his reaction?

In the silence of that moment, Thomas heard a noise from the other side of the room.  Where none of them were. His eyes flickered over to the fort, then back to the trio. Now they looked completely panicked.

“Hey!  Um—why don’t we eat now?” Patton suggested desperately with a very forced smile.  “Wouldn’t want it to get cold, right?”

Thomas frowned.  He almost wanted to go along with it just to calm the kids down, but he was supposed to be the adult here.  If they were doing something they were scared of him finding out about, there was a possibility they could get themselves hurt.  He looked at them again, then stood up and started walking over there.

“NO!”

In a flash, Roman was in front of him, stretching his arms out to keep him from going any further.  “You can’t go in there,” he insisted.

“I just need to know what’s really going on.”  He reached past him to push the blankets aside, knowing Roman wasn’t tall enough to stop him, only to find they wouldn’t move.  He turned around. “Logan? You too? Why are you—what’s  _ in _ there?”

Patton’s voice trembled as he said, “Would you believe it’s your birthday present?”

“My birthday is in April,” Thomas reminded him.  “Try again.”

“Look, you, you just can’t see, okay?”  Roman was still rather ineffectually blocking his path.

He sighed, rubbing his temples.  “Guys, you know I don’t want to, but this is really worrying me.  I  _ can _ go get a discipline officer.”  To allow for the enforcement of rules in a school where all the kids had superpowers, they had devices which could temporarily disable their abilities.  It was very rare that a situation came up where those were needed.

Logan bit his lip, visibly conflicted.  “I- I won’t let you leave then.” He turned towards the door, using his powers again to lock it and make sure it would stay that way.  “And I can stop your phone from working, too, if you try to call anyone…”

Thomas looked between all of them, eyes wide.  He was suddenly very aware of the fact that he was technically the weakest person in the room.  They would never  _ hurt _ him, of course, he didn’t mean it like that, but… it didn’t feel good to realize that a few fourth-graders could, in fact, easily overpower him.

“Someone will notice if none of us go back to class after free time,” he pointed out, not quite as calm as he would have liked.  “I just don’t understand—doing all this is going to get you in a lot more trouble than you would be if you just  _ told _ me!”

Patton let out a choked sound, and everyone turned to look at him.  He was clutching at his hair with both hands, eyes squeezed shut, and beginning to involuntarily summon a storm for the second time in less than 24 hours.  Thomas felt horrible for not having noticed how upset he’d been getting. He walked over, putting his hands on Patton’s arms.

“Hey,” he said gently.  “Take a minute and calm down, it’s okay.”

He nodded, closing his eyes again.  When he seemed calm, Thomas gave him a hug before pulling back.

“I don’t know what this is about, but you guys know I’m not mad at you, right?  I’m just worried. If I don’t know what you’re hiding from me, I don’t know that it isn’t something dangerous.  Do you get where I’m coming from here? If something is really wrong, I want to  _ help.” _  He’d thought they all knew that.

For a few tense moments, they seemed unsure, and that kind of hurt, to be honest.  The three of them exchanged meaningful looks.

“If we tell you,” Logan eventually said, “you have to promise not to tell anyone else.”

Patton flinched and had to struggle to stay composed, not that anyone was looking at him to see it.

That was really not a promise Thomas should have been making, but… “Okay.”

Apparently that was all Logan needed to hear.  He changed the blankets back to normal and nodded at Roman to step aside.  He did not, however, make any move to unlock the door.

Thomas slowly approached the fort, feeling nervous himself at this point.  Just before he could duck his head and go in, though, Patton stopped him.

“Wait, you’re gonna—uh, just wait here…”

He slipped inside, leaving a confused Thomas to wait for him to return.  He thought he could hear whispering, as if Patton were talking to himself.  Then he came back with two smaller,  _ absolutely terrified _ boys huddled behind him, looking underfed and like they’d been in a fight recently, and Thomas could have sworn the world froze around him with a record-scratch sound effect.

The problem was, nothing was actually for-real frozen, and he was definitely staring, and it was making them even more nervous.  He finally snapped out of it when Patton hesitantly called his name. He blinked and took a step back, sitting down on Roman’s bed.

“Wha- Patton, who are  _ they?!” _  He thought his reaction was fairly understandable, but he still regretted it when they flinched away at his exclamation.  “I’m still not mad,” he said carefully. “Just- very,  _ very confused!” _

Roman and Logan joined the other kids, and they looked slightly more at ease, which still wasn’t saying much.  Patton was smiling as hard as he could in an attempt to make things less awkward. “Why, uh- why don’t I introduce you, okay- Thomas, this is Devon and Virgil, we uh, we sort of, found them, behind a wall?  And this is Thomas, we told you about him, right, he’s nice I promise so you really don’t need to hide behind me…” He reached back and tried to pat Virgil’s shoulder reassuringly, only to have him immediately latch onto his arm and refuse to let go, still hiding—Thomas had yet to get a good look at either of them.  “Um. Or that works too.”

“Okay.”  Thomas rubbed his face.  “Okay. Devon and Virgil.  Nice to meet you.” Devon mumbled something in response, presumably returning the greeting.  “Where… where did you come from? How did you  _ get _ here?”  Patton’s claim of just sort of  _ finding _ them made very little sense.  There was nothing near the school for miles, specifically to avoid the possibility of random people wandering in, and these kids definitely couldn’t drive.

Devon took a small step out from behind Patton to speak for them both, not quite showing his face, his voice shaking almost as badly as the rest of him.  “We’re from the- the other school, s-sir,” he assumed the adults over here would still know about it even if the kids didn’t, “a-and we didn’t mean to end up here, really, we’re really s-sorry, we- we just didn’t know how to get back or we would’ve,  _ really, _ we weren’t trying to- to run away, you can take us back now…”  He wrapped his cape around himself defensively, and Virgil tugged on it to bring him back into relative safety.  Thomas did not have enough mental energy left to wonder why he was wearing that.

“Other… school?” he asked, picking out the thing he was most confused about.  “What other-?”

Logan stepped in and quickly summarized what he currently knew, which Thomas put together with his own knowledge of the fact that there was a lot more to the building than the areas where they were allowed.  There was an  _ entire other school _ over there and nobody told him?  …Well, no wonder it was a secret, if all the kids were being treated like these two apparently were.  He ran his hands through his hair, trying to think quickly and aware that everyone was waiting for him to say something.

“You said you would help,” Roman reminded him pleadingly.  “You can’t send them back there…” He was positioned in front of them in a way that suggested he would prevent that from happening himself if necessary.

“I will!  Help, I mean.  I’m not taking you back, I promise.”  He got off the bed, trying not to be startling, and grabbed the tray they’d all nearly forgotten about.  Then, he sat down on the floor with his legs crossed, gesturing for the kids to join him. “But lunch only lasts so long, so I think we’d better eat while we talk.  If I’m going to know  _ how _ to help, I need you guys to tell me everything you can.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thomas is a good bean, why were you all so worried? :P


	11. Serious Talk Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas loses his entire mind for SEVERAL reasons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my defense, watching Roosterteeth's 24-hour Extra Life stream threw off my whole schedule this weekend. It's not my fault this time. Mostly.
> 
> In other news, I'm going to take a couple of weeks off from posting because what with going home for Thanksgiving break and visiting with family and all, things are going to be pretty unpredictable. Hopefully that will give me some time to plan ahead a little better than I've been doing and work on other WIPs, and this fic will be back the first weekend of December.

Thomas was trying very hard to keep his composure and not look like he’d just had everything he thought he knew shattered, which was in fact the case.  Well, okay, not everything, that was a bit over-dramatic, but could you really blame him for exaggerating a bit? This was ridiculous, not to mention awful!  All this time he’d thought he was doing something good, helping these kids grow up as normally as possible despite the unusual abilities they’d developed, and now it turned out he was actually an unwitting part of some… shady, probably evil… thing?  He still wasn’t sure what the whole situation really was, okay, he just knew he didn’t like it—this was not the kind of thing that was supposed to happen in real life! Like, even more so than people having superpowers in the first place, which was already pretty wild… alright, no mental tangents, Thomas, focus please, you’re supposed to be the one who knows what he’s doing here.

Fortunately for him, there wasn’t any important conversation happening at the moment for him to miss out on.  After covering everything the trio knew so far while giving the other two a chance to warm up to Thomas—and that did mean  _ everything, _ because Patton wasn’t great at knowing which information was at all relevant—they’d decided it would be a good idea to eat first and then talk more, since lunch would be over before too long.  He’d been wondering why these three had gotten so much more than they’d normally be able to eat, so at least one question was answered. He sat back against one of the beds with his pizza and waited for everyone to be mostly done, taking note of the way the two from the mysterious other school watched him over their food like they thought he would try and take it, before asking any further questions.

“So,” he said once it seemed like an okay time to start the conversation back up.  “I know you two don’t really want to talk to me, and I get why that is. It… sounds like talking with adults hasn’t been great for you before.”  That was certainly one way to put it. “But I won’t be like them, okay? What they’re doing over there is wrong. I want to make sure you never have to go back to that school, but I need you to tell me more about it so I know what we’re dealing with, okay?”

They looked at each other, communicating silently.  They didn’t really trust him; they’d only known him for like half an hour, after all… but still, it seemed to be the best chance they had of staying here.  “…Okay,” Devon eventually said for both of them. At least he was able to address him normally now, even if he was still wary. “What do you want to know?”

Thomas asked them to go over their daily routine, and ten minutes later he was reeling.  It wasn’t even just the way the kids were being treated over there, although that was a factor.  No, more than that, it was the part they hadn’t expected to be all that important: the names of the people doing it.

“Wait, but- Ms. Wilson is  _ our _ math teacher!” Roman exclaimed.  “We were just in her class before lunch- she’s  _ nice, _ she never yells at anybody!”

Devon shrugged, looking down.  “Maybe it’s a different person with the same last name.”

“What does yours look like?”  Logan really hoped they could confirm that it wasn’t the same teacher.

“Um… dark brown hair about this long, reading glasses, kinda tall…”

“It sure sounds like the same one,” Patton murmured.

“This is… troubling information.”

Devon winced.  This was only partly due to the upset reactions, and the rest was Virgil gripping his arm really hard in response to them.  (Given that he’d never stopped hiding behind Patton, it nearly knocked Devon over.) “S-sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything to be sorry for,” Thomas assured him, even though he was just as shocked as the kids.  “Ah… why don’t you go ahead and tell us who your other teachers are, while you’re at it?”

Devon hesitantly listed them off, watching everyone else’s faces.  Just as they had feared, they were all the same; the only difference was that the schedule of classes was swapped, which made sense given that the teachers couldn’t be in two places at once.  Thomas had no idea how he was going to pretend everything was normal after this—how could he be friendly with these people while knowing the truth?

“Okay.  Okay.” He shook his head.  “Anything else?”

He learned that they had a training room which seemed to be separate from the one here, but everything else upstairs—the cafeteria and the school counselor’s office—was the same, just accessed through different doors.  Thomas was unspeakably relieved to hear that in those places, at least, both groups of kids were treated well. He didn’t think he could have handled Remy or the counselor Picani turning out to be secretly awful. What would that even look like?  He decided not to think about it.

To everyone’s surprise, Virgil finally decided to join in on the conversation when the counselor was brought up, tossing a balled-up paper from the notepad Thomas had given him in his direction.

_ I LIKE HIM, _ the crumpled paper read.  Virgil seemed to be fond of capital letters.   _ HE LETS ME TAKE NAPS IN HIS OFFICE. _

“Oh,” Thomas said faintly.  “Good, that’s… that’s good.”  He tried to smile; he ought to encourage Virgil’s contribution, even if he did feel like he was losing his mind over here.  The bell for the end of the lunch period rang a second later, and he jumped at the chance to get away for a bit and process things without worrying the kids.  “I’ll uh, I’ll just go return this tray- you guys should probably stay here, hopefully you don’t need me to tell you that… I’ll be back before free time is over, ‘kay?”  He barely waited for them to agree before leaving.

He kind of wanted to lie face-down on the floor for the next week or so, and maybe scream a little, but instead his body went into autopilot mode and took him upstairs and into the cafeteria.  At that point, he unfortunately regained awareness of what he was doing, which led him to stand there uncertainly for a few minutes, holding the tray and staring off into space. It was probably fine.  The cafeteria was empty other than him.

“Uh… Hello, earth to Sanders?"

…Or so he’d thought.  Thomas jumped and nearly dropped his tray, and when he managed to stop fumbling with it and turned around, he nearly dropped it again at the sight of Remy peering over his sunglasses at him.  He was certain his face was bright red.

“Remy!  I was just- I mean- hi?”

“Hi.”  He frowned and pushed the glasses on top of his head (the better to look at Thomas, of course).  “Are you feelin’ okay, girl? Not that I don’t love having you around, but you’ve been standing here like a zombie for five minutes.”

Thomas blushed even harder.  “I, uh- tired,” he managed, though it came out sounding like a question.  It wasn’t exactly a lie. As someone responsible for a large number of small children, there was rarely a time he wasn’t tired to some degree.

“Hm, yeah, I can see that,” Remy agreed, brushing his fingers over the slight shadows under Thomas’s eyes and making him squeak.  Maybe he should stop teasing the poor man before he passed out from all the blood going to his head. “How about you let me take that-” he pulled the tray from Thomas’s unresisting hands- “and you sit down for a minute, yeah?”

Thomas found himself sitting at one of the tables.  The chairs were… not exactly adult-sized, so he looked a bit silly, but he hadn’t been doing great in the dignity department to begin with.  He sighed and put his head in his hands, but Remy was back before he could get too much internal screaming done. He pulled out another chair and sat in it backwards, and of course  _ he _ didn’t look silly at all like that, because life just wasn’t fair.

“So, what’s the tea?”

“What?”

He rolled his eyes.  “I  _ mean, _ what are the kids doing this time?  I saw you pulling our favorite little troublemakers aside earlier, what’d they do now?”

“Oh!”  Oh no. “Well, uh, you know, the… the usual…”

“Aw, c’mon, don’t I get the details?”  He pouted. “I was looking forward to this story!”

“I… may have promised not to tell anyone?”

“Thomas, hon, you know that’s not how it works, right?  You’re going to have to report what happened anyway, so why can’t you tell me?”

The words left Thomas’s mouth before he could think.  “I’m not reporting it.”

Remy blinked slowly.  The teasing smirk faded from his face.  “Is this, like… some serious shit? Are  _ you _ gonna be in trouble?  Because I do not want you to get fired, babe, I really don’t.”  He wasn’t entirely sure what would happen then, but he felt like it would probably involve Thomas getting his memories wiped so he wouldn’t go around telling people about the secret school full of kids with superpowers, and then he wouldn’t remember  _ him _ and that was just unacceptable.

Thomas really wished his crush would stop calling him things like “babe” while he was trying so hard to not have to outright lie to his face.  “Maybe?” Definitely. “I can’t tell you,” he said pleadingly. “And… I have to- go now, I’ve got… stuff to do.” He stood up and pushed his chair in quickly, then thought of something.  “Wait, actually, can you do me a favor?”

“Let me get this straight.”

(“That’s going to be difficult,” said Thomas automatically.)

“You’re keeping secrets from me, and now you want a favor?”

He bit his lip.  “…Maybe?” He was probably about to do something stupid.  “Okay, how about this, if… you guess what it is… then I’ll tell you if you’re right?”  Surely there was no way he would just randomly guess it. It was fine. This was fine.

Remy folded his arms.  “I’m thinking about it.  What’s the favor?”

“I- well, this is going to sound super weird, but can I get a couple, like, to-go boxes of whatever we’re having for dinner?”

He couldn’t help but laugh.  “Extra food? That’s what you wanted?  That is so you, I can’t believe it.” He shook his head and started towards the kitchen door, talking over his shoulder.  “I mean, I can totally do that, though, nobody’s gonna care. Any special requests? Dessert or whatever?”

“Anything’s probably fine,” Thomas said absentmindedly, not realizing how weird it was to say “probably” in regards to food he was supposedly going to eat himself.  “Oh- hold on, do you happen to have any of those, uh, snickerdoodle cookies?” Thank you, Patton, and your inability to recognize that your new friend’s favorite food is not essential knowledge.

Remy froze and turned back around.  Thomas also froze, looking at him like… well, pretty much like how the kids had looked at  _ him _ earlier.  Which, in retrospect, probably just confirmed whatever suspicious he’d initially had.

“Thomas.”

“Remy…?”

“I will do this favor for you.”  Thomas sighed in relief, but then he continued.  “But. We are going back to your room, right now, and you are going to tell me  _ everything.” _  By the time Thomas even managed to have the thought that he didn’t have to agree to that, Remy had already disappeared somewhere, changed out of his work clothes and come back.  He took Thomas’s hand to get him to start walking, which he had to know made it infinitely harder to protest. When he heard the high-pitched sound of distress Thomas was making in the general direction of his own inability to hide one stupid thing for more than half an hour, he turned around and winked reassuringly, which was an interesting combination.

“Don’t you worry, girl, I can keep a secret… at least better than you can, anyway.”


	12. The Gay Agenda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A plan is made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we now return to the normal posting schedule, which means i'm basically nailing it by not having this done until monday night

Remy had nearly made it to Thomas’s room by the time he realized he didn’t know what he was going to say once they got there.  Yes, he hardly  _ ever _ knew what he was going to say until the moment it came out of his mouth, but this situation was a little more sensitive.  The problem was, he couldn’t actually be one hundred percent sure he was guessing right. Like, maybe Thomas was just even more of a mess today than usual.  He didn’t  _ necessarily _ have anything to do with the two kids who’d gone missing from the villain school just because he was acting weird and secretive and needed two kids’ worth of extra food.  He could just happen to be craving the same cookie Virge liked, too, although the way he’d visibly panicked when Remy questioned his oddly specific choice of dessert was pretty damning.  So, yeah, it would be wild if all that was a coincidence… but if it  _ was, _ he’d be in SO much trouble if he started talking about the villain school and, y’know, all that other stuff Thomas absolutely was not supposed to know about.  But how to find out how much he knew… without letting on that there were things he might not know? Jeez, this was giving him a headache.

He shook himself out of it when they arrived at the correct door.  Thomas fumbled for his key card and unlocked it, showing him in with an awkward wave of his hand.  It was a small place he had, not much bigger than the kids’ rooms, and Remy mentally reaffirmed his decision to make the commute from the nearest town rather than live in the housing provided by his employers.  He gave the bedroom a once-over, not having seen it before, and took in all the crayon drawings hanging wherever there was room for them. Thomas really seemed to be good with the kids, and at his job. It was too bad about all the super-unethical shit going on behind the scenes.

“Well, make yourself at home,” Thomas offered.  He sat on his bed and kicked his shoes off in the general direction of the door.

“Oh, trust me, hon, you don’t want that.”  Remy sprawled out next to him in what was practically a “draw me like one of your French girls” pose.  “You haven’t seen what I’m like at home.”

He winked (again! for the second time in ten minutes!) and Thomas got a bit flustered.  “I, I just meant- augh, okay, uh… you… what did you want me to- to tell you?” He covered his face with both hands and groaned.  “I am so sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me right now.”

“Chill, you’re fine.”  Remy sat up and got serious—the shades even came all the way off—which did not in fact do anything good for Thomas’s ability to chill.  He noticed. “Babe, c’mon, relax. I’m not trying to get you in trouble or anything. That’s why I wanted to talk somewhere private, right?  You don’t gotta worry.”

Thomas fidgeted with his hands, not quite looking at him.  “I know you’re not gonna get  _ me _ in trouble, but that wasn’t really what I was worried about…”

“The kids?”

He nodded.  Remy felt he should have thought of that.  Of course he’d be more concerned about them, he was the sweetest cinnamon roll ever to inhabit the form of an adult human man.

“Well, I’m not gonna get  _ them _ in trouble either.”  He hesitated and then added, “Any of them.”

Thomas looked up, stared searchingly into his eyes for a good twenty seconds, to the point where Remy was tempted to snap his fingers in front of his face.  But no, they were being serious right now. Thomas had a few false starts before finally asking, voice unsteady with nerves, “Even if… some of them aren’t… necessarily supposed to be here?”

Ah.  Well.  That was… surprisingly easy.  Remy had been expecting it to be  _ way _ harder to get some sort of hint from him.  What, did Thomas, like, trust him to be a good person or something?  Weird. Anyway, it was a relief to know that he was right, and the kids were in good hands.  He shrugged casually. “Duh. I mean, that’s what I figured you were thinking of in the first place, so…”

“Oh!”  Thomas laughed.  “Oh, good! ‘Cause that’s what I figured you… figured I was… y’know?”  He made a vague hand gesture between them. “I just, uh, I’m glad I can trust you with this?  They said you were nice so I thought I probably could, but I didn’t want to risk getting them- getting them in trouble if I was wrong, but  _ oh _ my goodness I am so happy to not be the only adult involved here anymore.”

“First of all, don’t even try to imply I’m a responsible adult  _ or _ nice when we both know I’m an impulsive bitch.”  Remy cracked a smile and leaned forward, cross-legged on the bed.  “So you’re like, taking care of them? How did that even  _ happen, _ what’s the plan and all?”

“Bold of you to assume I have a plan,” Thomas said automatically.  “Uh- apparently Pat found them? Because they were upset, and he felt it and had to go help ‘cause he’s the sweetest kid ever-”

“We get it, you’ve practically adopted him.”

“I- maybe!  But anyway, he and Roman and Logan ended up taking them back to their room and they’re kinda just… staying there now?  So I’m trying to help and like, be an adult, but they don’t trust me at all, not that I blame them, but I can’t do much to help when they’re  _ scared _ of me!  And also I only just found this out like, an hour ago, along with a bunch of other stuff that I’m still trying to process and what do I  _ do, _ Rem?!  And, a-and the bigger problem, which I only just realized right  _ now, _ is, even if I  _ can _ somehow keep  _ them _ from getting caught there’s still, like, a lot of other kids over there!  How am I supposed to help  _ them?! _  And-”

“Okay, whoa, Thomas, calm down.”  Remy caught his hands, which were sort of going everywhere as he got more agitated.  “One thing at a time, hon.” The combination of Remy holding his hands, looking into his eyes with slight concern and calling him “hon” was enough to make Thomas’s brain reboot, which at least meant he couldn’t keep panicking.  “You already have a place they can stay for now and a way to get food for them, so that’s a good start, right?”

Thomas nodded slowly.

“Well, there ya go.  They’re probably just scared ‘cause they don’t know you, so you don’t gotta worry about that, just let ‘em get used to you.  As for that last thing…” He bit his lip. “Can you keep a secret? Like, based on watching you try back there, I’m thinking no.”

“What?  Yes, I can!”

Remy would have called the expression Thomas was currently making a pout.  He also would have called it adorable, but that was none of anyone’s beeswax.  …He probably needed to pay less attention to Thomas’s mouth and more to the words coming out of it.

_ “Usually _ I can keep secrets just  _ fine,” _ he was insisting.  “It’s just that usually I don’t also have to deal with sudden unexpected revelations coming from kids, and not knowing what I’m even doing, and, and  _ you.” _  He flailed a hand in Remy’s general direction.  “I’m actually a pretty good actor, you know!”

“Oh, really?”  He took the hand again, this time mostly in order to be safe from getting hit in the face by it.  “Let me know next time you’re in a play or something, I might actually stay awake for the whole thing if you’re involved.”

Thomas blushed and stammered something about how very unlikely it was for that to happen as long as he was working here.

“Really, though- can you lie to literally everyone here without being suspicious?”

He laughed weakly.  “I mean, I think I had  _ better _ be able to, right?”

“True…”  Which meant that in any case, if Thomas got caught on what he was  _ already _ doing, Remy would almost definitely be caught as well for helping him and then everything would be fucked anyway, so there wasn’t really any reason  _ not _ to tell him.  Plus he very much wanted to tell him.  “Okay, here’s the deal. Listen up, ‘cause I don’t wanna talk about this out loud any more than I have to, that’s how serious of a secret it is.”

Thomas scooted a little closer and looked as attentive as he knew how.

“So, me and Emile have been talking for a while.  He knows better than anyone what this shit is doing to the kids- like, even over here, he’s constantly trying to break them out of this black-and-white good versus evil mindset they’re getting taught.  We wanna get them  _ all _ out of here and shut down the whole operation before it’s too late… we’re still not sure what  _ exactly _ the plan is for all these superpowered kids once they grow up, but it can’t be anything good.  Problem is, we haven’t had anything to work with so far. Emile’s been documenting as much as he can of the abuse on the villain side, but it’s hard when none of the kids want to look weak by admitting it, and it would take some  _ really _ solid evidence to bring this place down with all the government connections the higher-ups have.”

Was this going somewhere better soon?  ‘Cause it was kinda just making Thomas feel more helpless and overwhelmed than before.  He frowned at the carpet, and Remy squeezed his hand to get him to look up again.

“Aw, don’t look at me like that, girl, I was just about to get to the good part.”  He got Thomas to smile a bit, at least. “Now that all  _ this _ happened, and you’re with me, I think I just might have a plan.”

He brightened up.  “Wait, really?”

“You might not…  _ like _ part of it,” he admitted.  “Or a lot of it? But hear me out, okay, no interrupting.  Emile’s office is up on the second floor, like the cafeteria and all those top-secret rooms full of filing cabinets, right?  And he’s got a little room just like yours attached to it. If we can get the kids to him, he can hide them until the right moment, and then they can use their powers to break into the offices and snag some really incriminating files.  We’ll have the proof we need of what’s really happening here, and if everything goes right no one will even know who it was, ‘cause I’m pretty sure Roman can blind the security cameras.”

“And what if it goes  _ wrong?” _  Thomas didn’t look very sure about this.

Remy winced.  “I… don’t know  _ exactly. _  The kids will be in trouble, but they’re still needed for the fucked-up experiment or whatever this really is.  As for us, well, we’d be pretty much screwed,” he concluded with a shrug.

Thomas looked at his hands, brow furrowed.  He did not, in fact, like the sound of most of that.  But on the other hand, if it was their best shot at putting an end to all of this… 

“I’m not saying I’m agreeing to the plan,” he said slowly.  “But I can talk to the kids about it, and see what they think.”

Remy grinned.  “As if they’re gonna say no!”  Then he sobered and put his hands on the sides of Thomas’s face to make sure he had his attention as he warned him: “Remember, you  _ cannot _ say anything about this if there’s even the tiniest chance someone else might hear, okay?”

Thomas nodded, eyes wide.  Given that he didn’t trust himself to speak without his voice cracking at the moment, it was the best he could do.


	13. Your mission, should you choose to accept it...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Many questions are asked. Some of them even get answered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's still sunday in some time zones i'm not late this time
> 
> It is now FINALS WEEK so there will not be a chapter next weekend because I do not want to die thank you very much

 

There were fifteen minutes of free time left when Thomas returned as promised.  The kids were in the middle of a very loud and very pointless argument, which only quieted a bit when he opened the door, but he was just relieved that they were all still there.  He’d been a little worried they might try to pull something off on their own, now that he knew what had happened. He closed the door and looked to Patton for some kind of explanation, seeing as he was the only one who wasn’t either yelling or unlikely to say anything.

Patton walked over so he wouldn’t have to get equally as loud as everyone else in order to be heard.  He looked just the tiniest amount exasperated. “We were just kinda talking,” he explained, leaving out the fact that the conversation had at first been about whether they could really trust Thomas not to get them in trouble, “and then I said something really obvious and Roman was like ‘yeah, and in other news, water is wet!’ but then Devon said actually water isn’t wet, because it makes other things wet, and Roman said that’s stupid but then Logan said he’s right, and we couldn’t go look it up because you told us to stay here, so they’ve been arguing for ten minutes,” he finished with a little shrug.  “I don’t really think it’s that important, but they sure seem to think it is…”

“Yeah, that’s… not very surprising.”  Thomas put a hand on Logan and Roman’s shoulders.  “Break it up, guys, I need to talk to all of you real quick.”

“Thomas!”  They both brightened upon turning to him.

“You have your cellular device with you, correct?”

“Look up if water is wet and tell him I’m right!”

Thomas sighed.  Devon picked up on his irritation and crept away from the other two, doing his best to look like he hadn’t been the one to instigate the argument, on purpose, because he thought it would be funny.  Nothing like that at all, nope, he’d just been standing here this whole time.

“Okay, okay, I’m doing it,” Thomas relented.  He got his phone out and looked it up. “According to this first result… it just depends on what you mean by wet.”

“Well, obviously, it should be defined-”

“Nope!  Nope, not doing that right now, save it for later.  I have to tell you guys some stuff.” He remembered what Remy had said just before leaving and glanced around.  “Uh… quietly.”

“I can create a soundproofed area around us,” Logan offered.

Thomas nodded.  “Go for it.”

“Okay… I’m going to stand outside of it first to make sure it works.  Once I indicate that it’s ready, make some sort of noise to test whether I can still hear you.”  He went and stood by the door, concentrated for a moment, and gave a thumbs-up.

It was kinda hard to think of random things to say on command.  “Alright, uh… blah blah blah, saying things, is it working?”

Logan frowned and shook his head.  “I can still hear you. That’s strange, it should have…”

“Wait, you can hear him?”  Patton looked from Logan to Thomas.  “How come  _ I _ can’t hear him?”

Thomas looked down.  “Patton? Did you say something, bud?”

“What’s going on?” contributed Roman, who could pretty much tell what was going on but wanted to be included in the confusion.

Logan, to whom all of them were perfectly audible, pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Clearly something has gone very wrong. I’ll have to undo it and try again.”

Thomas giggled to himself.  “Raise the Cone of Silence.”  Unfortunately, the reference was wasted on a room of people with an average age of ten who mostly couldn’t even hear him.

A few tries later, Logan finally got it right and everyone circled up to talk.  “So, I talked to Remy while I was gone,” Thomas began, only to be immediately interrupted by a small chorus of squeals and teasing remarks.  “Not like that,” he insisted, flushing. “It was completely professional.” Disappointed groans. “As I was saying,” he continued as best he could, “I ran into him while I was returning the dishes, he kinda figured out you two were here but I didn’t tell him, I swear, and we talked a little and… basically, he had an idea to prove to the government that people are getting hurt here so they can put a stop to it, but we would need you guys to help.  I don’t want any of you to do anything you aren’t okay with, but I told him I would ask.”

Unsurprisingly, Roman was the first to react.  “Are you serious? Of course we want to help, we’re heroes!”

“Don’t speak for everyone else,” Thomas reminded him.  “It’s kind of risky… You would have to sneak into the offices upstairs to get the papers we need, and you’d probably be in a lot of trouble if you got caught.”

“We get in trouble all the time,” said Roman dismissively.

“Don’t speak for everyone else,” Logan snarked.  “Besides, I don’t think sneaking into the art room at night to make a mural is on the same level as stealing important documents in an attempt to get our teachers arrested.”

Virgil shivered, hugging himself.  Whatever the consequences of that were, he wasn’t at all sure he or Devon would survive them.

“But it would be like an awesome spy mission!” Roman insisted.  “How would we even get caught, anyway?”

“Just because cameras have difficulty recording anything in your vicinity doesn’t mean someone couldn’t still, for example, come up to look at a file or something and see us.”  He stopped, looking pensive. “However… that doesn’t mean I would not be willing to do it. As you were so enthusiastic to point out, Roman, we are supposed to be heroes; while the term doesn’t appear to actually mean anything to those training us, I see no reason to abandon it… and correct me if I’m wrong, but it would be much more difficult to do this without me.”

He nodded decisively, and everyone’s attention turned to Patton, who was fidgeting with the sleeves of his cat hoodie.  “I- I want to help! Of course I do, I just… I’d be more likely to get us caught than anything, right? I can’t really control myself when I get upset and it’d just make it obvious we’re there.”  He looked down.

Thomas put an arm around his shoulders.  “It’s okay, Pat. If you want to help, I’m sure there will be something you can safely do.”

“Maybe if you get upset you can just run somewhere else really fast and make a distraction!” Roman suggested.  It did at least get him to smile.

“Okay, now…”  Thomas finally turned to Devon and Virgil.  “What do you two think? It’s totally okay if you don’t want anything to do with this, we won’t try to make you do anything.”

Virgil was already shaking his head.  No one had expected anything else, really.  Devon, though, looked like he might actually be thinking about it.

“Can I ask questions?”

“Of course!  Hit me.”

“Why are you doing this?” he asked bluntly.

“What- what do you mean?”

“I mean… why do you even care?  It’s not like anybody’s really doing anything wrong, are they?  So- so why?” He stopped just short of asking, “What do you get out of this?”  Thomas already looked upset, and he flinched back a step, bumping into Logan.

“They  _ are _ doing something wrong.”  Thomas fought to keep his voice steady.  “Everything your teachers did to you was wrong.  I care because they’ve been hurting you guys, and they don’t deserve to be responsible for kids in any capacity ever.”

He frowned.  “What are you talking about?  Teachers are supposed to punish us when we do things wrong.  That’s like, the whole point of them. …Other than teaching, I guess.”

“Well- okay, sure, but- what they’re supposed to do is, like, put you in time-out or something reasonable like that.  Y’know, ‘sit here and think about what you did.’”

He nodded, frustrated that Thomas wasn’t understanding.  “Yes, like the Room! I keep telling you they aren’t doing things wrong!”

“The…?”

“The Room?  You know, like you just said?  Where you go sit in there to think about what you did wrong, and then the next day usually they come back and get you?”

Thomas put a hand over his mouth, more than a little horrified.  The  _ next day? _  They thought this was normal and fine?  And holy shit,  _ “Usually?” _

Devon had no idea what he wanted from him, so he just gave a tiny nod and edged behind Logan a bit.  “I- I mean- I don’t have to do that much, I can’t be in there alone very long or I get too cold and pass out, but- other people…”  He wasn’t sure how much that clarification was motivated by the hope it would convince Thomas not to do that to him, now that he knew it existed.

He took a deep breath, eyes closed.  “Okay. Okay- well, uh, not okay, that is super not okay, but- wow, that is… really, really awful.”  He opened his eyes again and looked at Virgil. “Has that, do they do that to you?”

Virgil nodded, his expression saying  _ “duh, is that even a question?” _

Thomas did not have the words to express how badly he wanted to hug these two, and wrap them up in blankets, and make sure they never got hurt ever again.  For now, he just tried to compose himself. “Okay,” he said yet again. “I want you both to understand that’s absolutely not a thing that should ever happen to anyone.  What I was talking about was, like, sitting in a chair in the corner for a few minutes. Or getting a lecture or something. Not… anything like what you just said.” He thought back to where this topic had come from.  “Does that answer your question? I care about stopping this because it never should have been allowed to happen in the first place.”

Devon and Virgil glanced at each other.  Neither of them quite knew, still, what to think of someone wanting to help without any kind of ulterior motive, and it was a lot easier to go on assuming Thomas secretly had one, but… it sure didn’t seem like he was just pretending.

“I… still don’t know about helping,” Devon admitted.  He wrapped his arms around Virgil, possibly unconsciously.  “It sounds like getting in trouble isn’t as bad for the rest of you as it is for us… plus my powers don’t work right anyway.”

“And that’s perfectly fine,” Thomas said firmly.  “I don’t want you in danger because of me.” He checked the time on his phone.  “Shoot, you three and I need to get back to school soon. Is there anything else before we have to go?”

No one had anything, at least not that they could think of on such short notice.

“Alright.  And you guys know you can’t talk about this anywhere else, right?”

They all nodded and rolled their eyes.  Of course they knew that, who did he think they were?

“See you in your next class, then.”  He gave them all an awkward wave goodbye and left the room, leaving the kids with a few more minutes before they needed to run to class.  They looked at each other. Roman still wanted to be excited about getting to do cool, important things, but it didn’t seem to be a good time right now.

“Devon,” Logan said softly.  “That ‘room’ you were talking about… is that where you were when we found you, really?”

Devon stiffened.  Shit. Now they all knew that story hadn’t been true.  He squeezed his eyes shut, expecting anger, and almost screamed when he felt someone crash into his side, but… it didn’t hurt, and nothing else happened, and a second later he opened his eyes just to end the suspense and realized he was being  _ hugged _ by a teary-eyed Patton, who’d managed to squish Virgil in there as well and wrap his arms around both of them.  It was weird, it was very weird, and he didn’t entirely get why it was happening, but- it was good. He felt a sense of loss when Patton stepped back, wiping at his eyes.

“I don’t wanna go to class,” he choked.  “I want to- to stay here with you guys…”

“That would just look suspicious,” Logan reminded him, putting a hand on his shoulder to guide him to the door.  “If you like, you can think of it as helping them by making sure everything appears normal.” Patton nodded, though he still wasn’t happy about it, and followed him out.

“Don’t worry,” Roman said before following them out.  “We’re great at sneaking around, we can do this easily!  Why, everything will probably be resolved by next week! I give you my word, new friends, nothing will go wrong.”  With that, he gave a half-wave, half-flourish and ran out the door, blissfully unaware of the incredible potential for dramatic irony his words had just created.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Get Smart references may not have been the best choice when a lot of you are probably younger than me, but here we are. If you don't know it, just... go find a clip of the cone of silence real quick. It's funny, I promise.


	14. Heroes' Gym Class

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A peek at the end of the kids' school day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yikes it's been a while uh. did not mean to take a 2 month hiatus but here we are. probably gonna start updating again? maybe? maybe not every week though, like every other week or something, cause that schedule was sort of burning me out and that was probably the reason it took so long to get back into it. we'll see

Although nothing felt even remotely normal at this point, the trio still needed to return to school and act as though it were.  Fortunately for them, there were only a couple of things left in the school day now that free time was over.  Less fortunately, one of those things on this particular day happened to be working with their powers in the specially designed gym, and that required a lot of focus.  When they caught up with the rest of their classmates, the excited chatter was building to a crescendo as everyone waited for the doors to be unlocked.  The three of them, however, were unusually quiet.

“At least this class can be fun sometimes,” Patton offered, trying to get in the spirit.  Neither of them really responded, although Roman shrugged and nodded his head a bit.

After a minute or two of waiting, the gym teacher Mr. Jacobs arrived, pushing through a sea of children to open the doors.  “Settle down, kids,” he called over the general ruckus.  Eventually, they stopped running around and chatting to each other and listened.  “Good.  Now, spread out and find a spot not too close to anybody else, and wait for me to come by and tell you what you’re working on today.  Do _not_ start until I tell you,” he reminded them.

The children scattered without issue, save for the occasional argument over who was in a particular area first.  The floor was divided up into large grid squares.  Once everyone had claimed one, Mr. Jacobs flipped a switch on the wall and barriers of light sprang up along the grid, ensuring that no one’s powers would directly affect anything outside their own square.  It didn’t contain the kids _themselves—_ if it had, it would’ve also prevented the teacher from walking around to check on them—but it would keep them from accidentally injuring each other.  Well, mostly.  There _was_ the occasional “oops, threw something across the room with my powers and hit someone” incident.  They were working on it.

The trio, of course, ran to claim three adjacent squares.  Patton went ahead and sat down on the floor, since he already knew he would be practicing the same meditation exercises he’d been doing for the past few weeks.  …He’d get it eventually.  To be fair, they didn’t have this class every day; often it was the regular sort of gym, with the exercise and kickball and such.  Still, no one else had to stay on the same thing this long.  His situation was a bit unusual, since his powers were based in his emotional state and happened _to_ him more than he controlled them.

It wasn’t long before Mr. Jacobs made his way over to their corner, to give Logan and Roman their instructions and… mostly just encourage Patton, since he had the general concept down at this point.  Roman was _extremely_ disappointed to learn that, rather than getting to play with the extent of his powers and what he could form with them, he was being relegated to a side-room to turn the lights out and practice making his own.  That was his _least_ favorite!  It wasn’t dark enough to creep him out, but it was no fun and he wasn’t any good at it.  Why were his teachers always making him practice things he wasn’t even good at?  It was so unfair.  While he sulked away, his complaints growing distant, Mr. Jacobs explained Logan’s task.

He thought it sounded fairly simple, at first.  He was to work on his ability to transport things from one place to another without literally teleporting them—the reason being, things that were alive wouldn’t take that kind of treatment in stride quite as well as the inanimate objects he practiced on.  To avoid any unwanted outcomes, Logan needed to learn a more indirect method: manipulating the air _surrounding_ the thing he was trying to move.  This ability would be invaluable if he ever needed to, say, get people to a safer location when he grew up and became a superhero.  For practice he’d been given a foam ball of the type school gyms everywhere have in surplus, presumably because it wouldn’t hurt much if he were to “yeet” it into someone’s face.  He frowned at it for a minute, trying to visualize the way the air molecules would need to move in order to lift it without throwing it against the ceiling.  He didn’t want to embarrass himself on the first try, especially right in front of Patton.  He’d probably find it hilarious and then Logan would never be able to forget about it.

As it turned out, the aforementioned Patton wasn’t likely to notice _anything_ Logan did, because he was too busy sitting with his eyes closed and trying very, very hard to be relaxed.  He’d been given a small container of mulch from outside, as it had been deemed the easiest earth-element-related thing to clean up, and every once in a while (every ten seconds, more like) he would peek to see if he was “grounded” enough to affect it yet.  Thus far, nothing.  He thought it moved for a second at one point, but he’d actually just gotten fidgety and bumped the container with his foot.  He sighed and closed his eyes again, trying to suppress his frustration with the fact that it wasn’t working so it could start.

Roman groaned and slumped in his chair.  He _hated_ this.  Glaring at his hands, he tried his best to produce light, but all he got was a few sparks.  He tried to count them before they disappeared—maybe it was at least a _bigger_ mini-explosion than last time?  No… no, not really.  Better keep trying.  He was getting a little bit of a headache, and his teachers always told him that meant he ought to stop and rest, but how was he going to master it if he stopped practicing?  Adults didn’t know everything, after all.

The hour went by quickly and painfully slowly at the same time, somehow, as the kids concentrated on their respective tasks.  By the time they were given a ten-minute warning, most of them were at least making progress.  Logan, for example, was beginning to get the hang of pushing his ball around in the air, and although it was quite wobbly, he at least hadn’t knocked his own glasses off with it after the first couple of times.  Roman was having less success.  After a long and disappointing mini-fireworks display, he finally managed to produce a tiny ball of light, less than two inches wide.  He held it carefully in one hand and improvised a little victory dance with his other arm.  When he’d composed  himself, he went to shape it into something—a lightning bug, possibly; that would be cool.  He didn’t make it far enough to find out, though.  The second he touched it, it exploded into a shower of sparks.  Roman slumped even further than he’d originally been, until he slid right out of his chair and onto the floor.  It was clear to him that he simply wasn’t meant to succeed today.

Back in the main room, Patton opened his eyes once again and looked at his mulch.  It was stubbornly refusing to move, or… do anything, period.  To be fair, that was how mulch normally acted—or rather, failed to act—but in this particular moment he wished it were a little more energetic.  It would be nice of it to meet him in the middle here, was all he was saying.  He glanced over at Logan, who was doing _great,_ because of course he was, he always did great.  Patton was happy for him!  He was so smart, figuring everything out right away like that.  _Logan_ would never be stuck on the same stupid task for weeks at a time…

He looked at his mulch again.  It burst into flames.

Luckily, it was similarly easy to make it _stop_ being on fire when he realized what a problem that was, and by then it was time to clean up whatever needed cleaning up and move on.  The last class of the day was art.  Whether it was normal gym or the superpowered kind, nobody wanted to leave a bunch of children all hyped up from it afterward, and a nice calming activity was ideal.  At the moment they were working on making little animals out of clay.  Logan could cheat at this if he so chose, but he tried not to, since he knew the purpose of the class was to learn to do it normally and he certainly wasn’t very good at that right now.  And he _needed_ to become good at it, because otherwise Roman would never stop bringing up how he was better than him.  Patton, for his part, didn’t notice any of that and just wanted to make cats.

Once school was finally over—and under the circumstances, it seemed to take far longer than usual—the boys headed to their room.  Dinner was in a few hours, but until then they could do whatever they wanted.  Right now, they wanted to stop having to pretend nothing weird was going on, and also their guests would start to worry if they didn’t come back right away.

Speaking of said guests, they were having some sort of discussion when the trio returned, but as soon as the door opened they fell silent.  Their resident empath was a little worried by the somber atmosphere, but then Roman was flopping in the middle of the floor and beginning the story of how the rest of their day had gone, and he soon forgot about it before he could find an opportunity to ask.  It was probably for the best, really.  They could all use a nice, relaxing evening or so of not focusing on anything too serious, at least until Thomas wanted to talk about it again.


	15. Movie Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fluff. Just... It's all fluff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I said, "I'll start updating regularly again." You know, like a liar.
> 
> but actually tho im doing a big bang so it's unlikely i'll be able to even try to update anything else regularly until the end of summer :/

Late Saturday morning, Thomas regarded the trunk of his car skeptically. “I really don’t think we needed to buy so many tiny flashlights and screwdrivers.”

“Uhm, I really think we _did._ Who’s the more experienced thief here, Thomas?” Remy’s unsubtle hand gestures made it clear what the answer was supposed to be.

“Just because you stole gum from a convenience store when you were thirteen—”

“I’m now a master criminal, yes, exactly. I’m glad you understand. The tiny flashlights are super important, trust me.”

Thomas sighed, amused. “If you say so. You gonna help me carry these bags?”

“Nope.”

“Remy—”

“I don’t have time, hon, I gotta go talk to Emile about all this, remember?” He neatly dodged Thomas’s attempt to foist a grocery bag on him. “I know you’re gonna miss me, but I’ll see you later, babe, don’t worry.”

Thomas scoffed and swatted his arm, which backfired a bit in that it nearly made him drop one of his bags. “I’ll live.” His words may have been dismissive, but he was smiling. That smile was still on his face as he made his way into the building and through the hallways to his own room. Most of the snacks were left there to be distributed later. He took the rest, along with the less innocuous items hidden at the bottom of the bags, and went down the hall to Logan, Roman, and Patton’s room.

“Good morning,” he called, after knocking in a pattern they’d agreed on the previous night so they would know it was him. He set the bags down and pressed a hand over his mouth in an effort not to “aww” out loud when he saw the kids.

They were all piled together in the blanket fort, and it looked like they’d been there the whole night. Patton was still asleep, tangled in a blanket, while Logan used him to prop up the book he was explaining to Devon- who, of course, tried to act like he already knew it, but his eyes were wide with interest. Meanwhile, Virgil was still curled up under Patton’s arm, where he’d become trapped at some point in the night, and Roman was telling him some grand story, complete with illustrations and various bits acted out. The smaller boy looked enthralled, if a little wary of all the wild gesturing. Roman paused mid-emphasis when Thomas walked in, just short of smacking Logan in the face, and Devon reached out and slowly pushed his arm back down.

Thomas smiled. “Hey guys, I brought you some stuff.”

“Ooh! What is it? Did you get good snacks?” Roman scrambled out of the fort and almost tripped on Patton, who had started to wake up. He turned over, holding Virgil to his chest like a teddy bear. The latter made a face and squirmed away, causing Patton to finally open his eyes.

“Oh. Sorry,” he laughed. Virgil waved him off with a shrug.

The kids gathered around, and Thomas started to show them what he and Remy had bought. “Of course I got good snacks, who do you think I am? Most of them are staying in _my_ room for now, though, because I know you guys.”

There was a chorus of “aww.”

“Other than that, I got some clean clothes for you two, so you won’t need to keep wearing the same outfits all the time or borrow from the other kids. But I had to guess at your sizes, so if something doesn’t fit, tell me, okay?”

Devon and Virgil nodded shyly and took the clothes, hiding them under blankets in the fort for now. They would try them on once Thomas was gone; changing with him right there would be embarrassing, even if he couldn’t see them behind the blankets that hung down.

“Now… everybody come close, this part is secret. Remember the plan we talked about?” They all nodded. “I know not all of you were sure if you wanted to help, and I’m not trying to push you into it or anything, but I got you all some stuff for it- if anyone decides they don’t want to come, that just means there’s extras for those who do participate.”

“I’m coming!” Roman reminded him, in his version of a whisper.

Thomas laughed. “You made that clear, don’t worry. So, uh, we’ve just got a few little things that might be useful- most of it Remy insisted on, so don’t ask _me_ what the putty is for.”

“Ooh, you were with _Remy?”_ Patton grinned, clearly believing he was being subtle.

“We were just doing _boring work things,_ so shush- and quit doing that thing with your eyebrows at me, Logan.” Thomas blushed, wishing he knew how to stop letting children embarrass him. The shopping trip may have been a _boring work thing,_ but it was very hard to convince himself Remy hadn’t been lowkey flirting with him the entire time nonetheless. “Take the stuff already and leave me alone.”

“How about this,” Roman offered, “we’ll stop _if_ and only if you let us have a movie night! I mean, we really need to- did you know they haven’t seen _any_ Disney movies?!”

Thomas hummed, pretending to think hard about it. “That sounds like a deal I can agree to. I’ll bring my laptop in here for you later, how about that? I know you’d rather use the big TV screen," he said over disappointed protests, "but I really don’t want to risk having Devon and Virgil leave the room when it’s not necessary, alright?”

“I _guess,”_ Roman huffed. “But that means you have to give us more snacks for it!”

“Whatever you say.”

 

* * *

 

Movie night, naturally, had to wait until it was at least evening- you couldn’t very well have one in the _morning._ Roman and Patton spent nearly all the preceding time planning it and gushing about how amazing it was going to be, to the point where the other three almost wished they _weren’t_ having it, if only to get some peace and quiet. By the time Thomas came back after dinner to let them borrow his computer, the blankets in the fort had been rearranged countless times, and the kids had a list of everything else they wanted in order to make it absolutely perfect. Thomas went along with _some_ of their requests, if not the ones like ‘a bunch of plastic balls so we can turn the room into a ball pit,’ and they managed to get everything arranged without anyone yelling at each other.

The movie they’d all decided on for tonight was _Sleeping Beauty-_ they should start with a classic, right? Logan was in charge of holding the popcorn, because he was the only one who could be trusted not to spill it or eat it all himself. During the opening credits, Roman bounced in place impatiently, while Patton carefully arranged his stuffed animals so he could hold them all and none would feel left out, ignoring Logan’s reminder that they were inanimate objects and had no feelings to hurt. When he was finally satisfied and looked up, he caught Virgil staring at him, looking conflicted. As soon as their eyes met the smaller boy  looked away, blushing and wrapping the too-long sleeves of his jacket around himself. He and Devon had changed into their new clothes by now, but he’d refused to give up that hoodie any longer than was needed to wash it, and even that had been a struggle.

“Hey, Virgil?”

He looked up again, defensive.

“Do you wanna hold one of my toys?”

Virgil shook his head roughly, retreating into his hood. He didn’t need toys, he wasn’t a _baby._

“Are you sure? This one’s all the way on the outside, I’m afraid it’s gonna get lonely… would you mind just holding onto it for me?” He held out a black stuffed cat, clearly well-loved by the fact it was missing an eye. Virgil hesitated, but finally took it, setting it down on his lap just so Patton wouldn’t be disappointed. Maybe it wasn’t too bad to hold it for him, as long as he wasn’t actually _hugging_ it or anything.

“Oh- look, look, it’s starting!”

They both turned back to the screen at Roman’s exclamation. The credits had ended, and the fairy-tale book was opening.

_“In a far-away land, long ago…”_

Roman watched Devon and Virgil, waiting for them to see how great the movie was. Unfortunately, they didn’t seem too impressed. “Don’t you like it?”

Virgil shrugged.

“It’s kinda boring,” Devon admitted. “Like, oh, there’s a king and a queen and a princess and they’re rich and perfect and everyone loves them- who _cares?”_

“That’s because this is the exposition,” Logan pointed out. “We need to know who they are before we can get to the real beginning of the story, in which a—”

Roman swatted his arm. “Don’t spoil it!”

The movie continued up to the celebration of the baby Aurora’s birth.

“Those gifts suck,” Devon decided. “Why couldn’t they give the princess something _cool?_ They could’ve given her magic powers and instead they just made her really pretty and good at singing.” Virgil nodded in agreement, making a face. They were both startled out of their snark when Maleficent appeared.

“She’s an _evil_ fairy,” Roman stage-whispered.

Logan added on, “It was a great insult for the king and queen to invite everyone in the kingdom and not her, especially when she’s so powerful.”

It was hard to tell if the intended audience for these explanations was actually listening. They were staring at the screen, wide-eyed, as Maleficent turned around and cursed the princess. Roman took this as a good sign that they weren’t bored anymore.

“It’s just so _impractical,”_ complained Logan, watching the pile of spinning wheels burn. “I mean, has the king even considered what this will do to the price of cloth in his kingdom? Everything will have to be imported!"

“Shut up, it’s a fairy tale,” Roman whined.

Devon looked almost impressed. “You know, he has a point.”

“Oh, just watch the movie.”

The three fairies, at least, were not a point of contention. It was generally accepted that, being fairies, they shouldn’t be expected to make sense- although, really, hiding Aurora away from civilization to keep her safe wasn’t such a bad idea.

_“Maleficent doesn’t know anything about love, or kindness…”_

When said Maleficent came back, it was hard not to notice the younger boys’ nerves. Logan saw Devon go very still and quiet next to him, no longer making fun even though Maleficent’s weird little minions were objectively ridiculous, and Patton could feel Virgil jump with every angry lightning strike, holding the stuffed cat tightly to his chest.

“It’s okay,” Patton told them in a whisper, “she doesn’t win.”

Roman was beginning to despair. “Don’t _spoil it,_ Pat.”

Logan rolled his eyes. “It’s hardly a massive plot twist, Roman. In movies like this, the good guys _always_ win.”

Thankfully, the tension was dispersed by a transition to a much lighter scene. Even Virgil relaxed and giggled at the fairies’ attempt to create a birthday party. Some of the humor was lost on them, however- they didn’t have the faintest idea how to sew or bake, either. What _was_ a “tsp?” The other kids seemed to know. Maybe it should have been obvious what exactly Flora and Fauna were doing wrong.

The scene with Aurora-slash-Briar Rose and Prince Philip… didn’t go over quite so well.

“Oh, oh, he’s back, look! With a horse! Bet you think he’s cool _now,_ right?”

The prince promptly fell off said horse into a stream, and Virgil snickered, raising an eyebrow at Roman. That was about as clear a wordless answer as he could ask for.

And now, the princess was dancing around singing about _love?_

“Gross,” muttered Devon and Logan in unison.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Logan continued as the two finally danced together. “I suppose I can understand her falling in love so quickly, given that he’s not only a handsome prince, but also the first person she’s ever met besides her guardians.”

“So you admit he’s handsome!”

“But what reason does _Philip_ have for suddenly loving her so much, he’d rather marry her than become king? He’s only known her for a few minutes, and most of that was just listening to her sing without even seeing her.”

“The fairies did give her a magically good voice,” Devon mused. “Maybe she _enchanted_ him to fall in love with her without realizing it.”

Roman reached over and gave them both a light shove. “It’s _romantic,_ quit ruining it!”

“I think it’s cute…”

_”Thank_ you, Patton!”

If Devon was oddly quiet after that, it was because he was grossed out by the sappy love stuff, and then worried about Maleficent’s bird finding the fairies- definitely _not_ anything to do with the song about dreaming of having a friend hitting just slightly close to home. At least the kings were funny.

“Okay, maybe he’s a _little_ cool,” Devon finally mumbled, watching Philip tell his father he was going to marry the random girl he’d just met. That was still a dumb decision, but anyone who could argue with a king and not be at all scared was at least slightly impressive.

Nobody really liked the part where Aurora was all distraught about not being able to meet Philip, so after a bit of sad silence, Roman took the opportunity to check in. “Do you guys like it so far?” he asked, clearly needing the answer to be yes.

Virgil nodded hesitantly, and Devon shrugged: “It’s… not bad. But I still think there should be less stuff about love, and—”

He gasped and cut himself off when Maleficent appeared in the fireplace. Virgil pressed up against him, eyes almost as wide as the hypnotized princess.

“Should’ve known she could just _make_ another spinning wheel…” He tried to sound cool and unimpressed, and not scared. “Stupid king. She’s _magic.”_

Virgil whispered something in his ear.

“Oh, yeah- it doesn’t even matter, anyway, right? They can just get the prince to come back and kiss her, ‘cause they’re already in love.” His face scrunched up at the thought of kissing, but it _was_ a solution.

However, as everyone else already knew, it wasn’t that easy.

Virgil sat up so quickly when Philip was attacked and captured by Maleficent’s minions that he would have fallen over, had Patton not been there to catch him.

“But did you see how many of ‘em he fought off before they got him?!” Roman punched the blankets around him to demonstrate, making sound effects.

If Roman was still happy, that probably meant Philip would be fine, right? Not that Virgil cared what happened to some stupid prince in a movie. Maleficent could kill him, for all Virgil cared. …But she wouldn’t, right? No, that wouldn’t happen, Patton and Logan had said she didn’t win in the end.

That reasoning didn’t stop both him and Devon from remaining tense for… pretty much the entire rest of the movie. Even if Philip was okay, they _really_ didn’t like seeing him in Maleficent’s dungeon. At least in the Room they didn’t get chained up- Virgil shuddered at the thought.

“See!” Roman exclaimed triumphantly, when the fairies finally arrived to help him get out. “I _told_ you he was cool!”

“I guess,” said Devon, sounding a whole lot more impressed than he wanted to let on. “Fairies are still doing most of the work, though.”

Then came the most exciting part of all: the final battle between Philip and Maleficent. From the moment she landed in front of the castle and turned herself into a dragon until the end of the movie, there were no snarky comments to be heard, and hardly even any disgusted faces made when Aurora was awakened by true love’s kiss.

“See? You didn’t need to be so worried, good prevailed in the end!” It wasn’t until Roman turned to face the two younger boys, and saw them still pale and anxious despite the movie being over, that he realized worrying about the ending may not have been the full issue. “Um… Guys? Is something wrong?”

Virgil and Devon had a brief, tense whispered conversation before Devon spoke up- very quietly, almost like he didn’t want to be heard.

“Are we evil?”

In the moment of stunned silence that followed, Virgil climbed over him, conspicuously placing himself between his friend and Roman. He didn’t seem to realize he was still clutching Patton’s stuffed cat.

“Wh- no! Of course not!” Roman jumped to his feet to emphasize how serious he was, and they both flinched a little. “Why would you think that?!”

Devon waited for Virgil’s cautious nod before saying anything else. “It’s just- Maleficent… she was evil, and she _looked_ like us, kind of, and- and she could shapeshift like me.” He touched the scales on his face and remembered the dragon. “So- it seemed like… the movie was saying those things are evil. I dunno, it’s dumb,” he trailed off, shrinking behind Virgil. “I- I mean, we already knew we’re villains…”

“No, you’re not,” Roman said firmly. He pushed the laptop aside and sat down in front of them, so they couldn’t avoid looking at him. “You’re not _anything_ like her! You’re not evil, you’re nice and you care about people and- and if anything, you’re more like Aurora.”

They both looked up, if only so he could see their skeptical faces. How did _that_ make any sense? She was a _princess._

“No, really,” he insisted. “Because you didn’t even do anything wrong, but the teachers and everyone are trying to hurt you because _they’re_ the evil ones, but now you’re gonna get a happy ending! Because I’m the Prince, and I’ll fight them for you.” He stood again and struck a pose to demonstrate.

Devon gave him a soft, genuine smile, then smirked as a thought occurred to him. “Just don’t try to kiss us.”

“Ew, no!”

Everyone laughed. As Roman sat back down, he almost didn’t feel the tug on his shirt. He looked over to see Virgil looking not-quite-at him, chewing on his lip nervously. Once he saw he had Roman’s attention, he took a deep breath, squeezed his eyes shut and went for it.

“T-thanks. For saying that.”

In an ironic turn of events, Roman was speechless. Virgil’s voice, now that he heard it, was lower than he would have expected from such a tiny kid, and somewhat rough- maybe because he hardly ever talked. And now he was peeking up through his bangs, waiting for Roman’s reaction, looking like he kinda wanted to run away. Oh, shoot, Roman needed to say something back and not make it awkward, didn’t he?

He pushed through his shock to answer, “Of course. It was all true, after all.” Then he nudged Virgil’s hood back slightly in order to mess up his hair, because he couldn’t let things get _too_ mushy. Virgil hissed and smacked his hand away, and the natural order of things was restored.

“But really though, what did you think of the movie?”

Virgil curled up in the blankets. His heart was still beating too fast just from saying four words- if he talked any more, he was afraid he might die from it. But he gave Roman a shy thumbs-up, and from the grin he got in response, that seemed to be good enough.

**Author's Note:**

> please come yell about this au with me on tumblr @do-your-socks-have-holes-in-them


End file.
